Laura Woodward : The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach

The American landscape painter, Laura Woodward (1834-1926) was born in Mount Hope in Orange County, New York. During the 1860s she instructed pupils in Art in Orange County and later, after moving to New York City, became a professional member of the Hudson River and White Mountain Schools. In the 1870s-80s, she hiked and sketched in the wilderness of the Northeast, revering nature and realistically depicting its pristine state. The gracious female landscape painters of New York overcame many challenges. They were banned from some exhibition venues and studio buildings, and faced discrimination by the media, male judges, and hanging committees. Nevertheless, Woodward's paintings invoked great praise from the critics of the day and one renowned male colleague declared her to be "foremost among the foremost of lady artists." Woodward came to Florida in the 1880s in pursuit of tropical foliage she wished to study and portray and from ca.1888-1896 became one of the most extensively traveled artists in the state. She excelled at her coastal paintings and braved the alligator, panther and bear-infused jungles to depict Florida's natural beauty in colorful watercolors and oils. Her paintings, as well as prints after her works were dispersed throughout the United States, publicizing the very notion of Florida as a colorful, tropical paradise at a time when there was no color photography. In 1891 The St. Augustine News proclaimed that Laura Woodward "should be adopted by the entire state" of Florida. Falling in love with the foliage of South Florida, Woodward became the pioneer artist of Palm Beach, one of the first professional women artists to paint in the Everglades and Miami, and the inspiration to Henry Morrison Flagler in his development of Palm Beach. Brought up in the Victorian tradition of modesty, she remained publicly silent about her accomplishments-only her family members knew the truth about her influence on Flagler-and it is only now, thanks to recently-discovered documented oral family history as well as corroborating facts, that the breadth of her importance is finally known. Laura Woodward: The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach not only rediscovers Florida's most important nineteenth-century woman artist and one of its greatest publicists, it also explores women's history, Florida history, and American art history of the nineteenth-early twentieth century. It also refutes myths about Woodward's friend and patron, Henry Morrison Flagler and celebrates the beauty of America's natural paradise.

Art dealer, writer and lecturer, Deborah C. Pollack began fine-art dealing at the age of sixteen and graduated with honors from Temple University with a B.A. in Art History. Deborah's magazine articles include a forthcoming issue of Antiques and Art Around Florida, THE Challenge, and Tequesta. Critically acclaimed books include Orville Bulman: An Enchanted Life and Fantastic Legacy and Laura Woodward: The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach, published with the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. The author and her husband own a fine art gallery in Palm Beach.