FIDELIA BRIDGES

(1834 - 1923)

 Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Fidelia Bridges became a specialist in detailed watercolor studies of plants and flowers painted during the 1860s and 1870s when watercolor became increasingly respected. She led a quiet life in Salem, Massachusetts, focusing on the serenity of nature. In 1876, she sold her first watercolors to publisher and chromo-lithographer Louis Prang, and her work lent itself well to this medium. From 1881 to 1899, she was a designer in Prang's firm.

She was the child of parents who died when she was young, and she became a mother’s helper in a Quaker household in Brooklyn, New York and then studied William Trost Richards at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

She was a follower of the Pre -Raphaelite movement, subscribing to the detailed, close-focus, small-scale watercolor technique espoused by John Ruskin. Pre-Raphaelites held the belief that the divine in nature could be apprehended by detailed renditions of its humbler aspects. The more truthful the picture, the more it reflected God and his designs.  She painted during the 1860s and 1870s when watercolor became increasingly respected.

Exhibitions

  1863 Brooklyn Art Association 

  1863 National Academy of Design 

  1862 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art