Through Richards, Bridges met museum curators and patrons of the arts. Richards says of Miss Bridges' work ( the best of the kind he knows) that it is the unaffected expression of a great joy in the beauty of nature-a joy which is after all the fountain of all that is finest in art and one could not see the rich treasures of Miss Bridge's portfolios of studies without feeling this. He was a Pre-Raphaelite advocate and her style was greatly influenced by him.
Having remained friends with the Richards family, she accompanied them to Lake George and Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and New Jersey on sketching trips. By 1862 she had her own studio in downtown Philadelphia. In 1860, after being inspired by sculptress Anne Whitney, she enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia with William Trost Richards and became very close to his family. Eliza died in 1856 of tuberculosis and Fidelia and her older sister Elizabeth then ran the school.īridges, however, soon abandoned teaching in order to concentrate on her drawing lessons. The Bridges moved to Brooklyn, too, and in 1854 Eliza established a school there. Having regained her health, Fidelia became a live-in mother's helper in the household of William Augustus Brown, a Quaker who had been a Salem ship-holder and the moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he became a successful wholesale produce merchant. She became friends of artist and art school owner, Anne Whitney. Fidelia's older sister, Eliza, was a school teacher and became the guardian of her younger siblings.įidelia, who was ill, was taken to Virginia Springs with family friends and upon her return studied drawing during her convalescence in Salem. The couple left four children, Eliza, Elizabeth, Fidelia and Henry who lived at 100 Essex Street, now known as the Fidelia Bridges Guest House, but moved to a more affordable home on the same street after their parent's death. Three months later, just three hours before the news of his death arrived in Salem, Eliza died in March, 1850. Henry Bridges was taken ill and was taken to Portuguese Macau, where he died in December, 1849. She was orphaned by age fifteen after her mother and father died.
#Fidelia bridges paintings series
Her illustrations were published in books, magazines and were used for greeting cards.Ĭalla Lilly, c. 1875, Brooklyn Museum of Artįidelia Bridges, May one of a series of twelve color print illustrations, 1876, collection of the Boston Public Library.įidelia Bridges was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to a sea captain, Henry Gardiner Bridges (1789-1849) and his wife Eliza Chadwick Bridges (1791-1850).
She was the only woman in the group of seven notable 19th-century artists in the American Watercolor Society.
She was considered an expert and specialist in watercolor painting. She was known for her delicately detailed paintings. She first was an oil painter and later took up watercolor painting. She was a painter and illustrator, capturing small aspects of nature: flowers, birds, and other plants in their natural settings. Fidelia Bridges (– May 14, 1923) was one of the small number of successful female artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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