Lilla Cabot Perry

Perry was born into a distinguished and wealthy New England family, received a privileged upbringing, and was connected with many members of Boston’s literary and cultural elite. Only after her marriage and the birth of her three children, at the age of 36, did she begin her art studies with the portrait painter Alfred Quentin Collins. Wherever she travelled and settled — she lived in America, Europe and Japan — Perry took part in cultural life and actively supported painters she liked who were little known. Her love of Impressionism made her a supporter of the movement all her life. She won many awards for her work and held several solo exhibitions, but she always remained first and foremost a devoted wife and loving mother, and only then an artist. Perry painted until her death in 1933; even in her early seventies she would often be outdoors at five in the morning, wrapped in blankets with a hot-water bottle, determined to capture a magical snowy landscape at sunrise.

From the page of Autumn Afternoon, Giverny