Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft


Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft was an American graphic artist, watercolorist, and stained-glass artist.

Life

Mary Wesselhoeft was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
She graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, studying under Denman Ross and Charles Herbert Woodbury in Boston. Wesselhoeft also later studied under Hugo von Habermann in Munich.
Wesselhoeft worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York City, New York; and Santa Barbara, California. In 1900, she taught drawing at Miss Webster's Private School in Cambridge. By 1922, she had moved to New York City, where she set up a studio on Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street.

Media/Style

Wesselhoeft experimented with a variety of artistic medias, including: oils, watercolor, stained glass design, and crafting. As an American artist of the west, she is noted for her landscapes of Santa Barbara and of New Mexico, and portraits of Native Americans. Wesselhoeft created her glass works using both painted and unpainted glass, and is noted for her ecclesiastical designs. Wesselhoeft's stained-glass artwork was praised for its notoriety by the New York Times:
"Something quite new in glass is being done by a young woman, Miss Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft... she is the first person as far as known who has attempted to put the so-called independent art into glass... Miss Wesselhoeft believes that the simplicity of line and strong contrast of color in the work of the modern artists lends themselves to reproduction in glass."

Exhibitions

Stained glass window in the nave of the Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, Missouri, designed in 1912.
"Madam W.," drypoint, 1908. Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection.
Rose Window of the Unitarian Church, Santa Barbara, California.
"Portrait of Mrs. Perez Morton."

Memberships

Wesselhoft was a member of various notable art societies: