Description: Grace Huntley Pugh: Listed Artist (1912- 2010) “Our Love” Gold Frame Ca 1940

Measures: 5 X 4 Unframed ,13 X 11 custom framed, minor nicks

Condition: Very good 

Signed: Unsigned

Provenance: Grace Huntley Pugh Estate

Note:  Original preliminary sketch included

Shipping : $25

Grace Huntley Pugh
 

 
Her oil and watercolor paintings have been exhibited in national, regional and solo shows. They are in numerous public and private collections. Grace Huntley Pugh was born on September 25, 1912 in Schenectady, NY to Grace Lake and Grant Huntley and was raised in Rockville Centre on Long Island, NY. She attended Wellesley College and was graduated from Barnard College in 1934 with a BA in History of Art and Architecture. She then pursued graduate studies in NYC at the National Academy of Design Art School, the Art Students League, and the Parsons School of Design.
 
While studying art, Grace was also a Powers fashion model and modeled for her teacher and mentor, renowned painter, Leon Kroll. She is memorialized in his mural, "The Defeat of Justice," for the Main Office of the Attorney General in the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. Thanks to the recommendation of Mr. Kroll who had his summer studio in Lanesville, Grace's first job was as artist-in-residence and head of the art department of Briarcliff Junior College in New York. It was then, in the summer of 1938, that she first visited Cape Ann at the suggestion of Mr. Kroll and her grandmother, Samantha Littlefield Huntley, who was a prominent portrait painter known both here and abroad and who, at the suggestion of her instructor, John Henry Twachtman, had summered in Annisquam and painted on Cape Ann years earlier.
 
While painting on the rocks of Halibut Point, overlooking Folly Cove, Gracie met her future husband, Cresson, who summered with his family at their home, "Dotcrest," on Halibut Point. Cresson's father, Walter C. Pugh, an Episcopal minister, often served as a visiting preacher at St. Mary's and St. John's churches on Cape Ann. Grace and Cresson were married on September 21, 1940 and moved to Pittsburg where she painted and worked at the Carnegie Institute. With the onset of World War II and Cresson's deployment in the Navy, she returned to New York and became an art director at Young and Rubicam, the advertising agency in New York City.
 
Following the war, Grace and Cresson moved to Mamaroneck, NY, a Westchester suburb of NYC, where she was the founding president of the Mamaroneck Artists Guild, which first met in her backyard "Windhorse Studio" and, besides teaching art, painting Mamaroneck Harbor and her daughter Gigi among other subjects, was involved with multiple community art, historic preservation, and conservation projects through the decades – all of which she received great acclaim on multiple occasions for her vision, leadership, spirit, and generosity to the community. There have been many Grace Huntley Pugh days in Mamaroneck, and she has received multiple proclamations honoring her contributions to the community, including from the President of the United States. Gracie spent decades painting on Cape Ann every summer. She knew the Rockport and Gloucester harbors intimately because of the fine detail she drew in her works. She especially loved painting Pigeon Cove and Lanesville Harbor. Her oil painting of the reconstruction of the Pigeon Cove breakwater after the 1978 storm appeared on the Rockport Annual Report in 1979. She also loved swimming, and regularly swam across Folly Cove … in addition to painting it.
 
Through the years, Gracie especially enjoyed her friendships with the other artists and writers of Folly Cove. And, she cherished the many friends she had on all of Cape Ann - and they cherished her. Grace often said, "My paintings are about people and places I love – my family, children, dancers, musicians, architecture, my favorite spots in Europe, my favorite spots in and around Mamaroneck and Cape Ann where I live." Grace Huntley Pugh was also a member of the garden clubs and historical societies of Rockport and Mamaroneck, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and multiple community organizations. Gracie will be remembered not only for her talent as an artist, teacher, and community activist, but also for her vivacious spirit which was truly infectious to all who had the privilege of knowing her.
 

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Artist Statement:
"My paintings are about people and places I love . . .A painting represents my visual brainstorm in lines and colors. It combines design with the excitement of my sensations and ideas. 'Learn to see beautifully,' Leon Kroll used to say to me as his student at the National Academy of Design School of Art. I also incorporate that approach into my work."

Biography from Butler Institute of American Art

Grace Huntley Pugh 

American Watercolor Society.

Exhibited : Carnegie Institute Summer Show; National Academy of Design; American Watercolor Society; Butler Art Institute; Contemporary Art Gallery; New Rochelle Art Association; Westchester Art Society; East Hampton Guild Hall.

Organizing Chairman and First President Mamaroneck Artists Guild.

Studied : Wellesley, Barnard, National Academy of Design; Parsons School; Art Students League, Museums of Europe.  Four years Art Professor Briarcliff Junior College; 3 years U.S. Painting Sales; Carnegie Institute Art Director; Young & Rubicam; Instructor Westchester County Workshop; private children's classes, Mamaroneck

Collections :  Friends of Art,Pittsburgh; Monessan High School; Mamaroneck Free Library; John O'Connor, Jr., Robert Shaw and many others.

Murals :  Dial Lodge, Princeton University and private homes.  

Prizes :  Ernest Longfellow, Honorable Mention; Young Artists Rockport; All Westchester County Federation 1st prize oils 1954 and 1957.

Information provided by Pat McCormick. 

Artists of the Rockport Art Association.  Fourth Edition.  A pictorial and descriptive record of The Oldest Art Organization on Cape Ann.   Published by The Rockport Art Association., Rockport, Massachusetts, 1964.