Nell Brooker Mayhew

OPENING RECEPTION 1ST THURSDAY MARCH 3, FROM 5 – 8PM

​Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery has acquired three new oil paintings and three coveted – and lost! – color etchings by Nell Brooker Mayhew. An exhibition has been organized to celebrate. In addition to offering a curated selection of the artist’s unique color etchings and hand­colored inspirational prints, the gallery will also present her palette and two spectacular works by her contemporaries Jessie Arms Botke and Mary deNeale Morgan.

Always emerging, never quite emerged: In a new four volume catalog called Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860­–1960, art historian Maurine St. Gaudens puts forth a compelling picture of the creative richness of women artists working in early California. This follows another effort by Patricia Trenton called Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890­1945. Diverse, productive, and largely marginalized, these women clung together under such umbrella organizations as the Women Painters of the West. They taught. They exhibited. They sold work. Until recently, they also remained largely hidden from comprehensive histories. With increasing attention being paid to the contributions of women, Mayhew’s distinctive contribution to California’s visual culture can now be more easily assessed.