MARY EVANGELINE WALKER

Painter, illustrator, and teacher Mary Evangeline Walker (Mrs. Harold A. Landy) was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1894. Walker’s first illustration was published by Harper’s Bazaar when she was twelve years old. She studied with portraitist and illustrator Albert Edward Sterner at the School of Applied Design for Women, which was established in New York City in 1892 as part of the Arts and Crafts movement. Courses in illustration at the School were designed for unmarried women seeking vocational training; illustration was a female-dominated field in Walker’s time, and was taken less seriously than other fields of art by male artists. She also studied at Columbia University, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, and with the Impressionist painter Philip Hale. Walker lived most of her life in Boston, and is best known for the portraits she painted there. She was a member of the Boston Art Association, Newport Art Association, and the Copley Society. She was also director of “The Little Group” in Boston, and a member of the Art Commission for the City of Boston from 1942. She exhibited annually at the Boston Art Club and Jordan Marsh, as well as at the Copley Society, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She died in Arlington, Massachusetts in 1957. Walker’s work may be found among the collections of: the Boston Art Club; Princeton University; Harvard University; Radcliffe College; and in many public buildings in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York State.