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Ethel Mars
(1876 - March 23, 1959) U.S.A.

Ethel Mars

Painter

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Ethel Mars, born in Springfield, Illinois, was an only child whose father worked as a clerk for the Wabash Railroad. When she was seventeen years old in 1892, she enrolled in the Cincinnati Art Academy where she remained for two years. She dropped out, probably for financial reasons, but returned for the 1894-95 school year. She was a pupil of Frank Duveneck and the landscape painter L. H. Meakin, both of whom were mentors and championed her work.

While she was at the Cincinnati Art Academy, she met fellow student Maud Hunt Squires who was to become her companion for life. Upon their graduation, the two women moved to New York City and began to work as book illustrators. In 1902 they traveled to Europe to study the old masters in the museums, and, in all likelihood, visited exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris and elsewhere.

In 1903, a joint exhibition of their book illustrations was held at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and in 1904 the museum mounted an exhibition of their paintings, drawings and prints.

Sometime late in 1905 or early in 1906, Mars and Squires moved to Paris, and, except for a period mostly spent in Provincetown during the First World War, remained in France for the rest of their lives. In Paris they were part of Gertrude Stein's circle of friends, and in 1908-11, Stein wrote a double "word portrait" about them titled Miss Furr and Miss Skeene.

Ethel Mars exhibited frequently both in the United States and abroad. Her work was seen in the Paris Salon exhibitions from 1907 to 1913. She also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Society of Western Artists (at which she won an award in 1909), at the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery, Provincetown Art Association, and elsewhere. Her work was purchased by the French Government and is also found in the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Detroit Institute of Arts, Cincinnati Art museum, and in other public and private collections.

She died in the town of La Farigoule, France. Mars and Squires are buried together in Vence, France.

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Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/ - et alii

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