1. Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin was an American artist, educator and philanthropist who is known for her paintings of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
30 Facts About Elizabeth Coffin
1. 2.
Elizabeth Coffin was the first person in the United States to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree and was the first woman admitted to the Hague Academy of Fine Arts.
3.
Elizabeth Coffin opened a school in Nantucket that had been only open to men and offered several types of trade and crafts work courses to both genders.
4.
Elizabeth Coffin was the daughter of Andrew G Coffin and Elizabeth M Sherwood Coffin.
5.
Elizabeth Coffin's father was born on Nantucket, Massachusetts and her mother in New York City.
6.
Elizabeth Coffin was an eighth-generation descendant of the original Nantucket settlers Tristram and Dionis Coffin.
7.
Elizabeth Coffin studied at the Friends Seminary in New York City before attending Vassar College, where she was taught by the Dutch painter Henry Van Ingen.
8.
Elizabeth Coffin received her Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1870.
9.
Elizabeth Coffin received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Vassar College in 1876; Coffin was the first person in the United States to have received that degree.
10.
Elizabeth Coffin later studied at the Art Students League of New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
11.
Elizabeth Coffin began to summer regularly on Nantucket, starting in the 1880s, and moved there in 1900.
12.
Elizabeth Coffin's paintings preserved the way of life of Nantucket, now no longer a whaling port.
13.
Elizabeth Coffin's Hanging the Nets was exhibited in 1892 at the National Academy of Design and won the Norman W Dodge Prize for the best picture by a woman.
14.
Elizabeth Coffin won the Norman W Dodge Prize at the National Academy again in 1902.
15.
Elizabeth Coffin exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
16.
Elizabeth Coffin was one of the "New Woman" of the 19th century successful, highly trained women artists who did not marry, like Ellen Day Hale, Mary Cassatt, Elizabeth Nourse and Cecilia Beaux.
17.
Elizabeth Coffin was a member of the Brooklyn Art Guild and the Art Students League of New York.
18.
The school closed in 1898 and Elizabeth Coffin reopened the school for students of both genders in 1903.
19.
Until Elizabeth Coffin taught basketmaking, baskets were traditionally made by boys and retired sea-faring men on Nantucket.
20.
Elizabeth Coffin's students included women from the Goldenrod Literary and Debating Society which was established in 1895 for girls.
21.
Elizabeth Coffin reopened the school during a period when the whaling industry, which had been the economic backbone of the island, had ended.
22.
In 1910 Elizabeth Coffin was living at 30 Remsen Street in Brooklyn, New York.
23.
Elizabeth Coffin left for Europe, intending to spend two years there.
24.
In 1927 she sailed from Southampton, England to New York on the SS Nieuw Amsterdam with Fred Elizabeth Coffin, who was born in 1873 and lived at 30 Remsen Street in Brooklyn.
25.
Elizabeth Coffin's address was the Vassar Club on 57th Street in New York City.
26.
Elizabeth Coffin was interested in the theatre, opera and music.
27.
Elizabeth Coffin was a member of the Association of Collegiate Alumni, Vassar Alumni Association and Vassar Student's Aid Association.
28.
Elizabeth Coffin was active with the National Child Labor Committee, College Settlements Association, Maria L Owen Society for the Preservation of Wild Flowers, Nantucket Historical Association and Nantucket Civil League.
29.
Elizabeth Coffin was living in her home on Lily Street in Nantucket when she died on June 21,1930.
30.
Elizabeth Coffin was buried in Brooklyn, New York at the Friends Cemetery at Prospect Park.