Ethel Edwards
{{Short description|American painter}}
{{infobox artist
|name=
|image=Ethel Edwards.jpg
|caption=Artist Ethel Edwards with Xavier Gonzalez (L) and Chris Karras on the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, Colorado
|birth_date={{birth date text|1914}}
|birth_place=Opelousas, Louisiana{{cite book|title=New Deal Art in Alabama|isbn = 9781476621142|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfZTCgAAQBAJ&q=Edith+Edwards%2C+artist&pg=PA104|accessdate=29 March 2017|last1 = Davis|first1 = Anita Price|last2 = Emerson|first2 = Jimmy S.|date = August 2015}}
|death_date={{death date and age|1999|01|24|1915|mf=yes}}
|death_place=
}}
Ethel Edwards (1914– 1999) was an American painter, collage artist, illustrator, and muralist. She is known for her New Deal murals.
Education
In 1933 she entered Newcomb College in New Orleans where she studied with Xavier Gonzalez. She married Gonzales in 1936 in Alpine, Texas, where he had conducted a summer art colony for several years.{{cite web |title=Ethel Edwards |url=https://64parishes.org/entry/ethel-edwards |website=64 Parishes |publisher=Louisiana Endowment For The Humanities |access-date=7 March 2022 |language=en}}
Career
They continued the summer art school until 1936 when Xavier took a leave of absence to live in France. Returning to Alpine with her husband in late 1937, Edwards won a national competition to paint a post office mural, Afternoon on a Texas Ranch, for Lampasas, Texas.{{cite web|url=http://www.askart.com/askart/e/ethel_edwards/ethel_edwards.aspx|title=Ethel Edwards - Artist, Fine Art, Auction Records, Prices, Biography for Ethel Edwards|work=askart.com|accessdate=24 January 2015}}{{cite web|url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ethel-edwards-papers-6268|title=Summary of the Ethel Edwards papers, 1935-1999 - Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution|author=Archives of American Art|work=si.edu|accessdate=24 January 2015}} In 1942 she completed a mural, Life on the Lake for the post office in Lake Providence, Louisiana.{{cite web |title=Post Office Mural - Lake Providence LA |url=https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/post-office-mural-lake-providence-la/ |website=Living New Deal |access-date=7 March 2022}}
During the World War II war years Edwards and Gonzales moved to New York City where they both taught at the Art Students League and she did fashion illustrations for Town & Country and Fortune magazines. From 1942 to 1949, the couple lived in New York City and spent summers at Wellfleet, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Edwards later taught at the Art Students League of New York and the Truro Center of the Arts.{{cite web |title=Ethel Edwards papers |url=https://sova.si.edu/record/AAA.edwaethe?s=430&n=10&t=C&q=Architecture%2C+Commercial&i=434 |website=Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives |access-date=7 March 2022}}{{cite web|title=Instructors and Lecturers of the Art Students League (Past and present)|url=https://www.theartstudentsleague.org/instructors-and-lecturers-of-the-art-students-league-past-and-present/|website=The Art Students League of New York|accessdate=25 March 2017}} In 1957 Edwards was the recipient of a MacDowell fellowship.{{cite web |title=Ethel Edwards - Artist |url=https://www.macdowell.org/artists/ethel-edwards |website=MacDowell |access-date=7 March 2022 |language=en}}
Edwards died on January 24, 1999, in New York City.
The Xavier Gonzalez and Ethel Edwards Travel Grant given by The Art Students League of New York was first awarded in 2002; it provides stipends to artists for travel in Spain.{{cite web|title=Grant Recipients 2013|url=http://www.asllinea.org/grant-recipients-for-2013/|website=Linea: The Artist's Voice|date=20 June 2013 |accessdate=25 March 2017}}
Works
Her papers can be found in the Archives of American Art in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
Her paintings are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum{{cite web |title=Ethel Edwards {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/ethel-edwards-1412 |website=americanart.si.edu}} and the United States Bureau of Reclamation.{{cite web|url=http://www.usbr.gov/museumproperty/art/bioedwar.html|title=Ethel Edwards|work=usbr.gov|accessdate=24 January 2015|archive-date=18 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618141321/http://www.usbr.gov/museumproperty/art/bioedwar.html|url-status=dead}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Ethel}}
Category:Art Students League of New York faculty
Category:American modern painters
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:Section of Painting and Sculpture artists
Category:American women illustrators
Category:20th-century American illustrators
Category:Artists from New Orleans
Category:Painters from Louisiana
Category:H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College alumni
Category:20th-century American women painters
Category:American women muralists
Category:People from Opelousas, Louisiana