Betty Waldo Parish

Betty Waldo Parish studied at The New School, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Grand Central School of Art. Work by Betty Waldo Parish is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Print Collection.

• Birth Name — Betty Waldo Parish • Born — 1910 • Birthplace — Cologne • Died — 1986 • Spouse — Edward Stanhope Leonard, Whitney Darrow Jr., Richard Comyn Eames • Known for — Artist

After graduating from the Horace Mann School for Girls in New York, Parish attended the New School for Social Research and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Grand Central School of Art, and the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1930 or shortly before, she joined the Art Students League where she worked with Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan, Reginald Marsh, Eugene Speicher, and Anne Goldthwaite. In the late 1930s or early 1940s she also attended the school at the Spokane Art Center.

In May 1932 Parish was one of some 200 artists who showed in the first Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibition and in June she and eight other artists showed again at an outdoor gallery behind the Gotham Book Mart on 47th Street. In 1933 Parish was a founding member and officer of the Fine Arts Guild, a group that held exhibitions of members' works at Grant Studios and other galleries. Reviewing this show, the critic, Howard Devree, singled out a painting of hers called "Black Tower," calling it "grimly impressive." After appearing in group shows later in 1933 and early in 1934, Parish was given a solo exhibition in a gallery at the Eighth Street Playhouse. During the remainder of the 1930s Parish continued to exhibit exhibited etchings, woodblocks, and watercolors in the Washington Square outdoor exhibits and Fine Arts Guild. Her work also appeared in group shows at places such as the Corcoran Gallery and the galleries of the Municipal Art Committee. She also joined and began appearing in annual exhibitions of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. In 1939 she was awarded a prize in the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors fiftieth anniversary exhibition. An image of the prize-winning painting, a landscape called "The Lower Lot," appeared with the New York Times article describing the show. During the late 1930s she made prints as an employee of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. She continued to show in group exhibitions during the 1940s, mostly those of the women's association, by then renamed the National Association of Women Artists. She showed a panoramic painting called "Washington Square South" in the 1942 show, which was, without explanation, called the 50th anniversary exhibition. In the mid-1940s she joined the Pen and Brush Club and began to show in its group exhibitions. In 1944 the club awarded her first prize in the oil paintings category and in 1947 gave her an honorable mention. In 1941, 1942, and 1943 she exhibited with the American Society of Etchers and in 1943 was awarded a prize for work by a non-member. In the early 1950s she won further recognition from the New York Society of Women Artists and the Pen and Brush Club. In the late 1950s and the 1960s her work appeared in retrospective solo exhibitions in places such as the Utica Public Library and the Rural Supplementary Education Center in Stamford, New York. She was given posthumous solo exhibitions at the Sylvan Cole Gallery (1988) and the Susan Teller Gallery (1988) as well as one group (2005) and one duo exhibition (2009) at the Teller Gallery.

Betty Waldo Parish was born in Cologne in 1910. Although she used Betty as her forename and sources of 1925 or later give that name, public records show her name as Elizabeth before that date. Her father was William Francis Parish (1874-1939), an engineer who specialized in machine lubricants and who was known for his work in military aviation and in developing synthetic oils. He was a U.S. citizen traveling in Germany when Betty Waldo Parish was born. Her mother was Josephine Driggs Parish (born about 1882). The two were married in Boston in 1904. Betty Waldo Parish had a sister, Helen K. Parish (born about 1913) and a brother William W. Parish (born about 1922). In 1930 she married Edward Stanhope Leonard (born about 1902), an illustrator. In 1935 that marriage ended in divorce and in 1938 she married Whitney Darrow Jr. (1909-1999), a New Yorker cartoonist. In 1942, after divorcing Darrow, she married Richard Comyn Eames, a farm equipment specialist and breeder of collies, ponies, and horses. Eames and Parish had two children, Richard Comyn Eames II (1945-1997), a sculptor whose professional name was Dickon Eames, and Elizabeth Parish Eames Roebling (born 1947), a journalist with the Inter Press Service. Sometime after the birth of the two children, Richard Comyn Eames moved to St. Croix, Virgin Islands, while Parish remained in New York. He did not attend the weddings of either child, both held in 1967. Parish died in 1986.