Women of the West

The Southwest Women’s Art Collection, a gift of Fran and Edward Elliott, came to Western Spirit in 2020, and comprises nearly 200 works by 25 women (some represented by only a single work). For Fran, collecting these artists was her passion. The early art community in Arizona was almost entirely female, and they were little known when she began collecting. She tracked auctions and located the artist’s relatives, and gradually the collection grew.

Collectively, these artists assembled an impressive list of firsts. Lillian Wilhelm Smith was the first woman to paint the Rainbow Bridge, and she was the only woman illustrator of Zane Grey’s novels. She pioneered dinnerware for the mass market, using Indigenous inspired designs for Leigh Ware potteries. Based on the First and Third Mesas, Kate Cory was the first resident artist to paint and photograph extensively at Hopi. Painter Jessie Benton Evans was one of the catalysts behind the first art show at the Arizona State Fair that commenced in 1915. Her work was collected by the Santa Fe Railway, the first corporate art collection in America (the company purchased more work by her than any other woman). Scottsdale has long taken pride in the many artists who settled there; the first to establish a studio there was Marjorie Thomas.

For the pioneering women artists who moved in Arizona in the first several decades of the twentieth century, the cultural landscape must have seemed as bleak as the hot dusty expanses they initially encountered. They would have found little in the way of cultural life, but they were resourceful, making a place for the arts in Arizona where was none.