Emma Mendenhall

Biography

(American, 1873 - 1964)

Emma Mendenhall, who is most famous for her impressionistic watercolors, was born in 1873 to Mr. And Mrs. Charles Mendenhall. Emma was the niece of Mrs. Larz Anderson, a Cincinnati art patron and philanthropist.

Some of the artists who painted in Cincinnati during her student years were Frank Duveneck, Thomas Noble, John Twachtman, Joseph De Camp, Robert Blum, Henry Farny, Edward Volkert, Robert Henri, J. H. Sharp, Clement Barnhorn, L. H. Meakin, Elizabeth Nourse, Dixie Selden, and Herman and Bessie Wessel.

Cincinnati was home to many citizens who supported these artists and who worked to establish the Cincinnati Art Museum and Cincinnati Art Academy, as well as the Cincinnati Symphony.

Emma was one of the many students who flocked to study at the Cincinnati Art Academy, where she was encouraged to travel abroad to study with Jules Leferve at the Julian Academy in Paris, and to study with William Merritt Chase in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island.

Not only was Emma surrounded by prominent artists scholastically, she traveled with her close friend Dixie Selden and other artists during the summer to Mexico (during WWI), Normandy, Brittany, Spain, Hawaii, Japan, and Morrocco. They also spent many summers on the upper East Coast.

Emma and Dixie would often paint the same landscape with Emma working in watercolor and Dixie working in oil.

Portraiture was another area that Emma explored. She used pastels to capture the sitter’s inner qualities just as she had done in her landscapes. In 1933, the Cincinnati Art Museum exhibited portraits by Mendenhall of Mrs. Larz Anderson, Mrs. James A. Bell, Mrs. William Ellis, Jr., Grace Hunt, Margaret Hunt, Master Rodman Moulinier, Miss May Resor and Mrs. Florence Foraker Scott.

Emma belonged to many professional organizations. She was one of the founding members of the Cincinnati MacDowell Society, The American Watercolor Society, New York Watercolor Society, American Artists Professional League of New York, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Washington Watercolor Society, and the Archeological Society of New Mexico.

Emma exhibited at the New York Watercolor Society, the Paris Salon, the Washington Watercolor Club, the Baltimore Watercolor Club, the Boston Watercolor Club, the Women’s Club, the Cincinnati Museum Association, and Ohio State University. Emma spent her life surrounded by many close friends and family. She died in 1964 at the age of 91 in her apartment on Hackberry Street in Walnut Hills. She will perpetually be remembered by her exquisite works of art.