Isabelle Clark Percy West

Isabelle Clark Percy was born on November 6, 1882, in Alameda, California.{{cite book |last1=Kovinick |first1=Phil |last2=Yoshiki-Kovinick |first2=Marian |title=An Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West |date=1998 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=0292790635 |page=248 |edition=1st}} Her mother was Emma Washburn (née Clark) was from Portland, Maine, from a family that descended from the Mayflower colonists.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSYKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA20 |title=Register of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of California: A Record of Descent from Passengers on the Good Ship, "Mayflower," A.D. 1620 |date=1917 |others=California Society of Mayflower Descendants |pages=20 |language=en}} Her father was George W. Percy a noted San Francisco architect from Bath, Maine.{{cite book |editor-last1=Moore |editor-first1=Sylvia |title=Yesterday and Tomorrow: California Women Artists |date=1989 |publisher=Midmarch Arts |isbn=0960247696 |page=69 |edition=1st}}{{Cite web |title=George Washington Percy (Architect) |url=https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/2004/ |access-date=2023-09-20 |website=Pacific Coast Architecture Database (PCAD)}} She grew up in Oakland, California; with a break from 1894 until 1896 to attended the Fort Wayne School for Girls in Portland, Maine.{{Cite web |title=Isabelle West - Biography |url=https://www.askart.com/artist/Isabelle_Percy_West/6009/Isabelle_Percy_West.aspx |access-date=2023-09-20 |website=AskArt.com}}

Percy studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (later known as San Francisco Art Institute), in San Francisco, under Arthur Frank Mathews. She continued her studies under Henry Bayley Snell in New York City.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bSUMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA645 |title=American Art Directory |date=1923 |publisher=R.R. Bowker. |volume=20 |pages=645 |language=en}} She went on to attend Columbia University, where she studied under Arthur Wesley Dow.{{cite book |last1=Koplos |first1=Janet |last2=Metcalf |first2=Bruce |title=Makers: A History of American Studio Craft |date=2010 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9780807834138 |page=82}} Percy graduated from the Art Department of Teachers College, Columbia University in 1907.{{cite journal |title=Faculty |journal=School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts Catalog |date=1907 |volume=1907-1908 |page=2 |url=https://vault.cca.edu/file/2dcafcb1-d33e-4dfe-bd53-b336611028dd/1/csac1907-08.pdf |access-date=20 March 2021}}{{cite web |last1=Royer |first1=Britt |title=Six Paintings from Avid Art Collector and Beloved Professor Naomi Schwartz will be on view in Upcoming 2020 SMCMoA Exhibition |url=https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/SchwartzCollection |publisher=Saint Mary's College of California |access-date=8 March 2021}} After graduation, she travelled and studied in Europe for a few years. In England, she studied under Welsh artist, Frank Brangwyn.

She married George Parsons West, a newspaperman, in 1916.{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Sylvia Ed. |title=Yesterday and Tomorrow: California Women Artists |date=1989 |publisher=Midmarch Arts Press |isbn=0960247696 |location=New York |page=69}}

In the 1910s, when "On the Pacific Coast, the profession being in its infancy...there are many encouraging creditable productions that command favorable consideration, among them...Helen Hyde and Isabelle Percy with their pictorial colored prints", Percy was recognized for her etchings.{{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Augustin S. |title=Little Literary Lights: Personal Preferences in Art: Literature: Flowers: Music |date=1915 |publisher=John J. Newbegin |location=San Francisco |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWU6AQAAMAAJ&dq=Isabelle+percy&pg=PA25 |access-date=8 March 2021}}

In 1911, she received an honorable mention at the Paris Salon. In 1915, Percy won a bronze medal for her lithographic print at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

In 1925, when the California School of Arts and Crafts completed its move from Berkeley to a new Oakland campus at the corner of Broadway and College Avenue, West made the move as well and was named as one of "the school's faculty of highly trained specialists" in the Western Journal of Education (1925).{{cite journal |date=August 1925 |title=Arts, Crafts School Opens at New Site |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nvHBY8XP-1sC&dq=%22isabelle+percy+west%22++-gallery&pg=RA7-PA17 |journal=Western Journal of Education |volume=31 |page=17 |access-date=3 March 2021}}

Percy West died on August 25, 1976 in Greenbrae, California.

In 1968, the "Isabelle Percy West Gallery" was completed in the topmost level of Founders Hall which was built on the Treadwell Mansion-Oakland campus of California College of Arts and Crafts, to honor founding faculty of the college.{{cite journal |title=California College of the Arts 1907–2007 |journal=Glance |date=2007 |volume= 15 No.1 |issue=Centennial Issue |pages=29, 66 |url=https://issuu.com/californiacollegeofthearts/docs/glance-winter-2007 |access-date=4 March 2021}}

Percy West's work is held in collections at Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, California.{{cite web |title=MCAM Artist: Isabelle Clark Percy West |url=https://artcollection.mills.edu/artist-maker/info/782 |access-date=6 March 2021 |publisher=Mills College Art Museum}}

Percy West exhibited nationally in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Hawaii and New York as well as internationally in Paris and Germany.

• 1915, Panama Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California; her lithography work was included
• 1928, The Academy of Arts, Honolulu (now the Honolulu Museum of Art), Honolulu, Hawaii; Percy West's paintings of landscapes and Hawaiian flowers were featured in an exhibit of Hawaiian Paintings{{cite journal |date=March 31, 1928 |title=Hawaiian Paintings At Academy of Arts |url=https://hojishinbun.hoover.org/?a=d&d=tnj19280331-01.1.8&l=en |journal=The Nippu Jiji: Leading Japanese Newspaper in the Territory |volume=March 31, 1928 |page=8 |access-date=3 March 2021}}
• 2020, Feminizing Permanence, Saint Mary's College Museum of Art, Moraga, California{{cite web |title=Feminizing Permanence |url=https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/saint-marys-college-museum-of-art/upcoming-exhibitions/feminizing-permanence |publisher=Saint Mary's College of California |access-date=10 March 2021}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://vault.cca.edu/items/0a820c44-2528-51c6-375a-4b3c4ca1ff47/1/?search=%2Fsearching.do&index=5&available=15 Isabelle Percy West with CCA Founder, Frederick Meyer]

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Category:1882 births

Category:1976 deaths

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:20th-century American women painters

Category:20th-century American etchers

Category:American lithographers

Category:American women academics

Category:American women printmakers

Category:Artists from Oakland, California

Category:California College of the Arts faculty

Category:Painters from California

Category:People from Alameda, California

Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni

Category:Teachers College, Columbia University alumni