Laura Hills began exhibiting floral pastels as early as 1889 at the Gallery of J. Eastman Chase, Boston. Early in her career, she was particularly well known for her miniatures, but as the market for these gradually slackened, she concentrated increasingly on her "portraits of flowers". Her success with these works was readily recognized in her own day as is demonstrated by her astonishing sales records. She was consistently and speedily supported by Boston art galleries and patrons. Even throughout the Depression years, the floral pastels sold for between $100 and $500.

Laura Hills was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1859. Although she was known for her miniature painting, she was also interested in pastels at a very early stage of her career. In her advanced years, she took this early interest and worked with pastels and flowers to paint her oft-spoken desire to create "portraits of flowers". Miss Hills began her artistic studies with Helen Mary Knowlton, William Morris Hunt’s most important student. She then studied at the Cowles Art School and the Art Students League with William Merrit Chase. She was awarded medals of honor at the Paris Exposition (1900), the St. Louis Exposition (1904), the Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915), and the Pennsylvania Society of Painters (1916). In 1899, she helped to found the American Society of Miniature Painters and became its first vice president. She was also a member of the Woman's Art Club and an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design.

Miss Hills exhibited regularly at Dolls and Richards, the Copley Gallery and the Guild of Boston Artists. These shows were well known for their speedy "sell-outs". Her works were also shown at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters, and the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. The artist continued to exhibit new works through 1947 at the age of eighty-eight.

The works of Laura Hills are found in many public and private collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The artist was well represented in "The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870-1930," which traveled from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to the Denver Art Museum and the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.

Bernard Brussel-Smith was born in New York City on March 1, 1914, and died on May 8, 1989. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the New School for Social Research, New York. Brussel-Smith was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy in 1952, and a Member in 1973. He taught at the Brooklyn Museum, Cooper Union, City College, and the National Academy. Although Brussel-Smith spent most of his life in the New York area, and was widely known for his posters of the New York Auto Show in the 1950s and 60s, in 1957-58 he studied with Stanley William Hayter in Paris, developing a form of relief etching inspired by the process used by William Blake. Brussel-Smith, with his wife Mildred and son Peter, spent many summers from 1957 to 1980 in Collonges-la-Rouge, France.

One-man exhibitions of work by Brussel-Smith include those at the Galerie St. Jacques, Collongesola-Rouge, France, 1969 and 1970; Musée Ernest-Rupin, Brive, France, 1976, the Olthuysen Ateliers, Rotterdam, Holland, 1978; the Maison de la Sirène, Collonges-la-Rouge, 1979; the Katonah Library, New York, and the Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California, 1980; the Galerie Maas, Rotterdam, 1981; and the Bethesda Art Gallery, Maryland, 1982. An extensive retrospective of his work was held at Fairleigh Dickinson University Library in Madison, New Jersey, in 1983. In the summer of 1988 the Sterling Library of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, exhibited work by Brussel-Smith to commemorate the donation by the artist of a substantial archive of prints and the great majority of his blocks and a show was held at Associated American Artists, NY. In 1989 memorial exhibitions were held at the Galerie St. Jacques, Collonges-la-Rouge, and the Susan Teller Gallery, NY.

In addition to the large holdings of prints by Bernard Brussel-Smith at the Fairleigh Dickinson University Library and the Sterling Library of Yale University mentioned above, work by the artist is in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum, the New York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and the National Academy of Design, New York; the National Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; the Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine; the Philadephia Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Free Library, Pennsylvania; the Oklahoma City Museum; the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam; and the Lenin Library, Moscow, Russia.

From "Bernard Brussel-Smith, 1914-1989: A Memorial Exhibition." Susan Teller Gallery, 1989.

Anne Lyman Powers personal statement:

I was first interested in painting around the age of sixteen. So I studied both painting and sculpture during whatever times I had free – during school, college and summers. I have always preferred realist painting with recognizable subject matter – but a subject matter that has two aspects. The first is that the subjects should be explicit – portraits, human or animal forms, landscapes, still life and so on. I have never limited myself in any way here. I say to myself that I’ll paint anything, any time, anywhere. So most of it reflects my home and family, friends, occupations and travels. I feel free to absorb influences from any direction: a bit of surrealism, a bit of pop, a bit of abstract expressionism.

The second aspect addresses the object which is the painting – or whatever the work is – its composition, color relationships and texture. The considerations here should obey rules for abstraction. The marriage between these two principal aspects should be accomplished in a way which makes possible and enhances a feeling, an experience or a statement about the world in which we live or about the human condition. In short: a realist abstraction or abstract realism. That’s where the interest lies for me—in the tension to be resolved.

I am lucky to be able to paint at home. In addition to my painting studio, I have a press for etching. The lithographs are printed at Fox Graphics which is located now in Merrimac.

EDUCATION:

The Winsor School; painting: David Park. Independently, sculpture: Mary Moore, painting: Ernest Thurn

Vassar College; sculpture: Elizbeth de Casimo Geiger.

Columbia University; sculpture: Hugo Robus.

Boston Museum School; painting: Karl Zerbe. Drawing and graphics: Ture Bengzt.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Boston Museum School - painting instructor.

Wellesley College - painting instructor (1949-1950)

Private instruction.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS:

Boston Public Library

The Andover Companies

Harvard Trust Company

Firestone Library, Princeton University

Springfield Basketball Hall of Fame

The Boston Globe

MEMBERSHIPS:

Artists Equity, Boston Visual Artists Union, Boston Printmakers