Lydia Purdy Hess Lowry

Lydia Purdy Hess Lowry was born in Newaygo, MI in 1866. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1886. In 1891, the artist travelled to France to continue her studies at the Academie Delacluse and the Academie Julian in Paris. There, Lowry briefly attended classes with the famed American artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Gaining acclaim for her artwork, she exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1892. From 1892-1895, Lowry returned to Chicago to become an instructor at the Art Institute. She also became the assistant to the noted sculptor, Lorado Taft. At the Art institute, she met Charles Doak Lowry (who would become District Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools) as a student in one of her classes and they married in 1895. Lowry exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA in 1893 and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1895, 1898 and 1900. She died at the age of 70 in Evanston, IL in 1936.