Skip to main content
Jane C. Peterson
1876–1965
BirthplaceElgin, Illinois, United States of America
Death placeLeawood, Kansas, United States of America
BiographyKnown for gaily colored paintings of outdoor scenes and floral still-life arrangements, Jane Peterson ranks as perhaps the most successful, prolific, and well-traveled woman artist of her generation. Peterson was born in Elgin, Illinois, and moved to New York at the age of eighteen to study art at the Pratt Institute and at the Art Students League. While still a student, she taught art in Brooklyn and Elmira, New York, and in Baltimore. In 1907, she traveled in Europe and studied in Paris under several teachers. A favorable review of her work on display at the Société des Artistes Français led to successful exhibitions in Boston, New York, and Baltimore, a rare mark of success especially for a female painter. On a visit to Venice, Italy, Peterson was encouraged by fellow American artist F. Hopkinson Smith (1838–1915) to study with famed Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863–1923), a master of the brilliant outdoor light effects and undiluted color characteristic of the then-fashionable mode of painting known as impressionism. After working with Sorolla in Madrid, Peterson traveled widely in North Africa. The paintings that resulted from these experiences were featured in a large solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1910.
For the next fifteen years, Peterson followed the trajectory of her meteoric early rise and her peripatetic habits. She exhibited widely in the United States, taught at the Art Students League, and, until World War I, made annual trips to Europe. She also spent considerable time working in California, painting in popular locales on the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine, and visiting Florida, where she founded the Palm Beach Art Club. An impressionist oil and watercolor painter early in her career, in 1912 Peterson began also to use tempera (a water-based opaque paint). Her work is often marked by the sensuously curving lines characteristic of the Art Nouveau style of the 1900s and by the strong, expressive color and paint application of the manner known as post-impressionism. She painted landscapes, city views, and beach and garden scenes as well as portraits and figural compositions set indoors. Characterized by gaily colored, patterned surfaces and cheerful leisure themes, Peterson's work has been likened to that of her contemporary Maurice Prendergast.
Peterson's success reached its climax in the 1920s, when she was honored with several solo exhibitions. She made her final trip abroad in 1924, when she spent six months in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey. The following year, she married a well-to-do New York physician. Dividing her time between New York and a summer home in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Peterson began painting floral still lifes, the focus of the remainder of her career. In 1938, the American Historical Society named her the "most outstanding individual of the year"—only the second woman so honored. In the 1950s, crippled by arthritis, Peterson ceased painting. She moved to Kansas City, Missouri, to live with a niece shortly before her death at age eighty-eight.
For the next fifteen years, Peterson followed the trajectory of her meteoric early rise and her peripatetic habits. She exhibited widely in the United States, taught at the Art Students League, and, until World War I, made annual trips to Europe. She also spent considerable time working in California, painting in popular locales on the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine, and visiting Florida, where she founded the Palm Beach Art Club. An impressionist oil and watercolor painter early in her career, in 1912 Peterson began also to use tempera (a water-based opaque paint). Her work is often marked by the sensuously curving lines characteristic of the Art Nouveau style of the 1900s and by the strong, expressive color and paint application of the manner known as post-impressionism. She painted landscapes, city views, and beach and garden scenes as well as portraits and figural compositions set indoors. Characterized by gaily colored, patterned surfaces and cheerful leisure themes, Peterson's work has been likened to that of her contemporary Maurice Prendergast.
Peterson's success reached its climax in the 1920s, when she was honored with several solo exhibitions. She made her final trip abroad in 1924, when she spent six months in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey. The following year, she married a well-to-do New York physician. Dividing her time between New York and a summer home in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Peterson began painting floral still lifes, the focus of the remainder of her career. In 1938, the American Historical Society named her the "most outstanding individual of the year"—only the second woman so honored. In the 1950s, crippled by arthritis, Peterson ceased painting. She moved to Kansas City, Missouri, to live with a niece shortly before her death at age eighty-eight.