Lucia Fairchild Fuller


Lucia Fairchild Fuller was an American painter. She was known for her miniatures.

Life and career

Fuller was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Elisabeth A. and Charles Fairchild. Her paternal grandfather was Jairus C. Fairchild, the first Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, and her uncle was Lucius Fairchild, Governor of Wisconsin; her brother was the composer Blair Fairchild.
She was educated at Shaw's Private School, the Cowles Art School under Dennis Miller Bunker, and at the Art Students League, New York, under William Merritt Chase and Henry Siddons Mowbray.
She began painting professionally in 1889, and produced chiefly miniatures. She was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a silver medal at Buffalo in 1901 and a gold medal at the Saint Louis Exposition of 1904. Fuller founded the American Society of Miniature Painters. However, she didn't limit herself to small scale work. Fuller exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and her mural Women of Plymouth in The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. She was also a member of the New York Water Color Club.
In 1893 she married Henry Brown Fuller, a fellow artist. They were both active in the Cornish, New Hampshire, arts colony. Fuller also taught; among her pupils was Elsie Motz Lowdon.
Fuller died in Madison, Wisconsin from multiple sclerosis in 1924.