Colorado & Regional Art

Elisabeth Spalding was born March 1868 in Erie, Pennsylvania. At age six she settled with her parents in Denver when her father was appointed Episcopal Bishop of Colorado in 1874. She studied art in England and France, as well as at Cooper Union in New York City with J. Alden Weir and the Art Students League in New York with Childe Hassam, Kenyon Cox and John Twachtman. She also spent summers working with artists Arthur Wesley Dow in Ipswich, Massachusetts; John F. Carlson at Woodstock, New York; Charles W. Woodbury at Ogunquit, Maine and Henry McCarter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts summer classes in Chester Springs. In 1890 she was a founding member of Le Brun Art Club, Denver’s first all-women art group. She also was a charter member of the Denver Artists’ Club in 1893, which evolved into the Denver Art Museum in 1923 and the Denver Artists Guild in 1928. She served on the juries and hanging committees of both organizations, and throughout her life she promoted the importance of art in education and public life. As a member of the museum’s “Let’s Keep It” group she facilitated the acquisition of important pieces for its permanent collection. In 1943 the City Club of Denver awarded her its medal for distinctive achievement in painting. Her scrapbooks, now in the Western History/Genealogy Department at the Denver Public Library, constitute an invaluable reference for the early art history of Denver and Colorado. Spalding’s paintings were exhibited at the Société Nationale de Beaux Arts and Galerie Jean Nart in Paris, Brooklyn Museum (New York), Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois), University of Colorado at Boulder, Denver Art Museum and Broadmoor Art Academy (Colorado Springs). She also participated in watercolor exhibitions in Washington, DC; Baltimore, Philadelphia and Providence, Rhode Island.