Louise Crow

born Seattle, Washington, 1891; died San Mateo, California, 1968

BiographyThe artist Louise Crow was a Seattle native who began her studies with Washington impressionist Paul Gustin then joined the American impressionist William Merritt Chase at his summer school in Carmel. She later attended classes at the San Francisco Institute of Art, Cincinnati Art Academy, and National Academy of Design. From 1921 to 1925 she traveled through Europe absorbing the work of both Old Masters and the European avant-garde as well as creating her own work. In the United States, she moved a great deal spending several years in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco but living primarily between Seattle and Santa Fe, New Mexico where she was a respected member of the art colony.

Crow worked primarily in oil and watercolor with subjects ranging from landscapes and portraits to still lifes. Many of her works had California or Southwest themes and often included Native American sitters or object. She was fascinated by Native and particularly Pueblo Indian cultures and she was made a fellow at the School of American Research in 1920 because of her fieldwork at San Ildefonso Pueblo. During her lifetime Crow’s work was exhibited at the Oakland Museum, California, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Salon d’Automne, Paris and the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe among others. She embraced the modernist ideas of the early 20th century using simplified forms, bold shadows, and strong, expressive color in her works.

Crow had a number of health and financial problems late in life and died penniless and without children or close family. As a result much of her work is now lost.

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