33 Facts About Nell Blaine

Nell Blair Walden Blaine was an American landscape painter, expressionist, and watercolorist.

Nell Blaine was born on July 10,1922, in Richmond, Virginia, to Harry Wellington Blaine and his second wife Eudora Catherine Garrison.

Nell Blaine expressed his grief as anger toward his daughter, in the form of verbal and often physical abuse.

When Nell's health was too fragile for her to attend school, Eudora Blaine tutored the girl at home for a year.

At the age of five, Nell Blaine told her mother she wanted to make art.

Nell Blaine's father lost his job as a lumber inspector, and had to settle for lesser pay during the Great Depression.

The Nell Blaine grandfather moved in with the family in its already crowded space.

Nell Blaine loved her grandfather and recalled that he loved to dance, could crack jokes, and told brilliant stories.

Nell Blaine was teased at school because of her crossed eyes, and fought back physically.

Nell Blaine was described as pale and undernourished; her school placed her in a special class and on a strict diet.

Nell Blaine had several operations at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and had to wear bandages for months.

Nell Blaine suffered from cardiac asthma and a series of heart attacks that left him disabled and on oxygen for long periods.

Flowers were Nell Blaine's happiest enduring link with her childhood in Richmond, Virginia.

Nell Blaine studied at the Richmond School of Art with Theresa Pollak.

Nell Blaine was recommended to him by printmaker Worden Day.

Nell Blaine studied etching and engraving with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 starting in 1945.

Nell Blaine's work had begun as "tightly realist" but transformed to an abstract style, which was inspired by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, and Jean Helion.

Nell Blaine's association with the American Abstract Artists group led to her receiving her first solo exhibition, held at Greenwich Village's Jane Street Gallery, of which she was a founding member.

Nell Blaine briefly lived and worked in Paris around 1950 with Larry Rivers, traveling across Europe and exhibiting with the American Abstract Artists group in France, Denmark, and Italy.

Nell Blaine showed at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery starting in 1953.

Nell Blaine worked directly from nature, or still life, particularly focusing on the forms and hues of flowers.

Also during this time, Nell Blaine was prominent among a prestigious circle of New York artists and poets which included John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Koch, Lee Krasner, Jane Freilicher, Leland Bell, Louisa Matthiasdottir, Robert De Niro Sr.

In 1959, Nell Blaine spent several months traveling and painting in Greece before contracting bulbospinal, or paralytic, polio while visiting Mykonos Island.

Nell Blaine resisted classifying her work, which explored color and the interplay of light and shade.

Nell Blaine would convey this sense of celebration in her early abstractions inspired by jazz, recent unfurling petals of dahlias, or cushiony zinnias that testify to the abundant small miracles of the commonplace.

Nell Blaine was known to paint in seclusion, often late at night when she could have the quiet setting she preferred.

In 1943, Nell Blaine married Bob Bass, a French horn player who introduced her to good friends in painters Larry Rivers and Jane Freilicher.

Nell Blaine lived for many years in a large apartment and studio in the building at 210 Riverside Drive with her life partner, artist Carolyn Harris.

Nell Blaine appeared in the New York Times on November 15,1996.

Nell Blaine's works are included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, National Academy of Design, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Rose Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

In 1980, Nell Blaine was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full member in 1982.

In 1986, Nell Blaine received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art.

In 1996, the year of her death, Nell Blaine received the Leslie Cheek Award for Outstanding Presentation in the Arts from William and Mary concurrent with a retrospective of her work at the Muscarelle Museum of Art.