Stanton, Lucy M., 1875-1931

Lucy May Stanton (1875-1931), art teacher and miniature portrait painter, born in Atlanta, Georgia.

Stanton was born in Atlanta on May 22, 1875, to Frances Louisa Megee and William Lewis Stanton. She grew up on Gordon Street, across the street from Joel Chandler Harris's house, the Wren's Nest. She was educated at Southern Female College in LaGrange (also known as Cox College), where she majored in Greek and Latin. She was later assistant professor of art at the college after its relocation to College Park, and she also taught art at New Ebenezer College in Cochran (later Middle Georgia College) during 1893-94. Her professional career as an artist began in Atlanta in 1896, with a commission for three miniature portraits of soprano Adelina Patti. She went on to paint many of the distinguished citizens of Georgia, including Atlanta mayor Charles Collier (ca. 1899), Joel Chandler Harris (1906, 1914), and Howell Cobb, whom she portrayed as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in a 1911 commission that hangs in the Speaker's Lobby of the nation's capitol. Stanton received most of her formal art training in Paris, France, where she lived during 1896-98 and again in 1905-6 ... Beginning in 1902 Stanton's works were shown regularly in group and solo exhibitions in London, England; Paris, France; New York; Boston; Philadelphia; and New Orleans, Louisiana, as well as in many other cities around the United States ... A member of many professional art organizations, Stanton received numerous awards for her work, including those of the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Blue Ribbon, Paris, 1906), Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters (Bronze Medal, 1917), Atlanta Art Association (first prize, 1917), Concord Art Association (Medal of Honor, 1923), and National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors (honorable mention, 1925). Stanton's works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Emory University, and the Georgia Museum of Art. "Lucy May Stanton." New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/ (Retrieved November 4, 2008).

Lucy May Stanton (1875-1931), artist, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but lived and worked in Athens, Georgia. She studied art in Europe and specialized in painting miniatures. Lucy Stanton's paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, D.C.) and other institutions.

Lucy May Stanton created works in oil, pastel, and watercolor; but she is best known as a painter of portrait miniatures in watercolor on ivory, during a revival of that art form, which took place during the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States after 1890. Her mature style in miniature painting is distinguished by her innovative use of broad washes, and her portraits, both miniature and full-scale, and particularly those depicting African Americans, are powerful evocations of character, expression, and mood. Working in the Deep South in the early twentieth century, Stanton was among the first artists to represent black subjects without sentimentality or prejudice. New Georgia Encyclopedia - Lucy May Stanton (1875-1931) http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-972 (Retrieved December 9, 2010)

Frances Forbes Heyn was Lucy May Stanton's niece.

W. Stanton Forbes was born in Athens, Georgia. As a child, he studied art with his aunt, the artist Lucy May Stanton. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1932 with a BA in English and received a Master's degree in English from Vanderbilt University under the poet John Crowe Ransom.