57th Street Window

Signed lower left. Complemented by a hand carved and gilt frame.

Mary Elizabeth Price (1877 - 1965)

M. Elizabeth Price was born in West Virginia, and raised on a farm in Solebury, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of New Hope. She studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Hugh Breckenridge. She also studied in New Hope with William Lathrop. Following her art studies, Price went to New York . While there, she conducted the “Baby Art School”, a children’s school for painting, in collaboration Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, from 1917 -1919.

Her home and studio since the mid-1920s, which she named “Pumpkin Seed” cottage, was situated along the canal and towpath in New Hope. When asked where the name came from, Price replied “when I first saw the original cottage it was painted such a vivid yellow that I instinctively thought of a pumpkin; it was so small that I named it Pumpkin Seed.”

Coming from a rich artistic background, her one brother was F. Newlin Price, well known author, art critic and owner of Ferargil Galleries in N.Y.C., and her other brother was R. Moore Price, the renowned local framemaker. Married to Alice Price, M.Elizabeth’s sister was artist Rae Sloan Bredin.

Although she painted a variety of subjects including beautiful impressionist landscapes, Price is best known for her paintings of flowers on backgrounds of gold leaf. She used a sharp tool to draw her designs on a ground of gilded gesso. Then she would add her richly blended colors with delicate charm. The result would be a breathtaking array of floral radiance. The brilliance of the gold background was varied by her own method of using sixteen different tones of gold leaf.

She exhibited with The Philadelphia Ten from 1921until 1945, and was one of the founders of the Phillips Mill Art Association. Price went on to show with many galleries in New York. She had solo exhibitions at Grand Central, Anderson, and the Fifty-fifth Street Galleries. She was involved in exhibitions in Palm Beach, Florida, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. She also exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Institute, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Academy of Design, the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Her works are hanging in the permanent collections of Swarthmore, Smith and Dickenson Colleges as well as in many other museums and institutions. Along with Fern Coppedge, M. Elizabeth Price is considered one of the most important women associated with the Pennsylvania Impressionists. She remained in New Hope until her death in 1965 at the age of eighty seven.


Sources: New Hope for American Art by James M. Alterman
- Lambertville, Record, May 22, 1930.
-New York Sun, March 6, 1930.