Nell Sinton

Eleanor Walter was born in 1910 in San Francisco, California to a prominent Jewish family active in Congregation Emanu-El.{{Cite book |last1=Heller |first1=Jules |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ReZkAgAAQBAJ |title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary |last2=Heller |first2=Nancy G. |date=2013-12-19 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-63889-4 |pages=1692–1693 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=National Register #11000944: Sinton House in San Francisco, California |url=https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/nat2011000944.asp |access-date=2022-12-18 |website=noehill.com}} The Walter family ancestors had arrived in San Francisco in 1851, during the Gold Rush. Her parents were Florence (née Schwartz) and John Isidor Walter. Her mother was a master at bookbinding and a member of the Hand Bookbinders of California.{{Cite web |title=The Legacy of Florence Walter: Celebrating a Century at The Book Club of California |url=https://handbookbinders.org/hbc-goldleaf/2017/9/6/3zaep4z6e0p4mpbibq65p45zshdnhe |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=Hand Bookbinders of California |date=4 February 2018 |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |date=1972-03-28 |title=Florence Walter, Patron of Arts |pages=46 |work=San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114840381/florence-walter-patron-of-arts/ |access-date=2022-12-19}} Her father worked as a treasurer in the family investment and merchant business, D. N. & E. Walter & Company (David Nathan and Emanuel Walter and Company).{{Cite book |last=Voorsanger |first=A. W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jW_Z8q-8FvUC |title=Western Jewry: An Account of the Achievements of the Jews and Judaism in California, Including Eulogies and Biographies. "The Jews in California," by Martin A. Meyer |date=1916 |publisher=Emanu-el |pages=239 |language=en}} Her father served in many local leadership roles, including as the President of the California School of Fine Arts (later known as San Francisco Art Institute). Edgar Melville Walter, was her paternal uncle and he was an architectural sculptor and painter, who studied under Rodin.{{Cite book |last=Karman |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bwq6a0b3PXAC |title=The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers: Volume Two, 1931–1939 |date=2011-10-12 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-8172-5 |pages=798 |language=en}}{{Cite news |date=1947-03-09 |title=Six Louvre Drawings on Exhibit Here |pages=147 |work=San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114840612/six-louvre-drawings-on-exhibit-here/ |access-date=2022-12-19}}

Sinton attended Miss Burke's School during high school. Between 1922 and 1923, she attended classes at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) on Saturday mornings, before she decided to formally study there. From 1926 until 1928, she studied under Lucien Labaudt at CSFA. In 1938 to 1940, she returned to CSFA to study under Maurice Sterne, whom she also worked with on WPA projects.

Her first solo exhibition was in 1947, and the Raymond and Raymond Gallery in San Francisco. Her first solo museum exhibition was in 1949 at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Her earliest works, from the 1940s, were primarily focused on interiors and landscapes.{{Cite news |date=1949-05-01 |title=Donatello Work Shown at Museum |pages=168 |work=San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114840716/donatello-work-shown-at-museum/ |access-date=2022-12-19}}{{Cite book |last1=Bloomfield |first1=Anne |title=Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights |last2=Bloomfield |first2=Arthur |publisher=Heyday Books |year=2007 |location=Berkeley, CA}} In the 1960s, her work was fully abstract; and by the 1970s she was working in a loose but figurative phase.{{Cite web |last=Berkson |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Berkson |date=March 1987 |title=Bill Berkson on Nell Sinton |url=https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198703/nell-sinton-62411 |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=Artforum.com |language=en-US}}

Sinton served on the San Francisco Arts Commission from 1959 until 1963, and she was one of the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Art Institute from 1966 until 1972.{{Cite news |date=1959-04-11 |title=Nell Sinton Named to Art Commission |pages=18 |work=San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114840439/nell-sinton-named-to-art-commission/ |access-date=2022-12-19}} From 1974 until 1985, she taught art at the Institute for Creative and Artistic Development (now Creative Growth Art Center) in Oakland.{{Cite web |title=Eleanor Sinton - Biography |url=https://www.askart.com/artist/Nell_Walter_Sinton/102020/Nell_Walter_Sinton.aspx |access-date=2022-12-18 |website=Askart.com}}

Mills College in Oakland held a retrospective of her work in 1981.

She had married Stanley Henry Sinton, Jr., together they had three children.{{Cite web |date=1997-10-24 |title=OBITUARY -- Nell Sinton -- Respected S.F. Abstract Painter |url=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/OBITUARY-Nell-Sinton-Respected-S-F-2825158.php |access-date=2024-01-31 |website=SFGATE |language=en}}

Sinton had lived at 2520 Divisadero Street, in a Tudor Revival house built in 1933. In 1954, they bought the 1926-built house at 1020 Francisco Street in Russian Hill, San Francisco, which is listed as one of the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco since December 22, 2011.

Sinton died on October 23, 1997, in San Francisco. SFGate remembered her as "one of the early California abstract painters".{{Cite web |date=1997-10-24 |title=OBITUARY -- Nell Sinton -- Respected S.F. Abstract Painter |url=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/OBITUARY-Nell-Sinton-Respected-S-F-2825158.php |access-date=2024-01-31 |website=SFGATE |language=en}}

Her artwork is in museum collections, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), the Krannert Art Museum,{{Cite web |title=Nell Sinton |url=https://collection.kam.illinois.edu/artist-maker/info/6900 |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=Krannert Art Museum}} and the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA).{{Cite web |title=Nell Sinton |url=https://collections.museumca.org/?q=list/taxonomy/term/5045&page= |access-date=2022-12-18 |website=OMCA Collections}} She also has extensive files held at the Archives of American Art (a Smithsonian Institution), and the Bancroft Library.

• 1947 – solo exhibition, Raymond and Raymond Gallery, San Francisco, California
• 1949 – solo exhibition, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California
• 1952 – group exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York
• 1962 – solo exhibition, Bolles Gallery, New York City, New York{{Cite news |last=O'Doherty |first=Brian |date=1962-02-27 |title=Art: On an Outgoing Tide; Nell Sinton's Abstractions at the Bolles Gallery Are High Watermark of Day |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1962/02/27/archives/art-on-an-outgoing-tide-nell-sintons-abstractions-at-the-bolles.html |url-access=limited |access-date=2022-12-19 |issn=0362-4331}}
• 1963 – "Corridor: Fred Martin, Roy De Forest, Tony DeLap, Nell Sinton," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California{{Cite web |last=Coplans |first=John |author-link=John Coplans |date=March 1963 |title=John Coplans on Fred Martin, Tony Delap, Nell Sinton, Roy De Forest |url=https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/196303/fred-martin-tony-delap-nell-sinton-roy-de-forest-77329 |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=Artforum.com |language=en-US}}
• 1987 – "Early Works: Nell Sinton," solo exhibition, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8CZIAQAAIAAJ |title=Nell Sinton, a Thirty-year Retrospective |publisher=Mills College Art Gallery |others=Mills College |year=1981 |type=exhibition catalogue |issue=7}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Riess |first1=Suzanne B. |url=https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/sinton_nell.pdf |title=An Adventurous Spirit: The Life of a California Artist |last2=Sinton |first2=Nell |publisher=The Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley |others=Margot S. Biestman (introduction), Joan Sinton Dodd (introduction), Ruth Braunstein (introduction), Tony DeLap (introduction), Philip E. Linhares (introduction) |year=1992}}

• [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-nell-sinton-12793 Oral History interview with Nell Sinton, 1974 August 15], from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
• [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/nell-eleanor-and-stanley-sinton-papers-10238 Nell (Eleanor) and Stanley Sinton papers, [circa 1920]-1993], from Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

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Category:1910 births

Category:1997 deaths

Category:Painters from San Francisco

Category:Jewish American artists

Category:San Francisco Art Institute alumni

Category:American abstract artists

Category:20th-century American women artists