biography of Maria STORER (1849-1932)

Birth place: Cincinnati, OH

Death place: Paris, France

Addresses: Cincinnati, OH; Paris, France

Profession: Ceramicist, painter

Studied: Cincinnati Art Acad. with Thomas Noble, 1887-90; Cincinnati Art Mus. with Frank Duveneck, 1890-91

Exhibited: Paris Expo, 1889 (100 medals for pottery); Columbian Expo, Chicago, 1893; SNBA,1899 (vase; she was listed as Mme. Bellamy-Storer); Paris Expo. Universelle, 1900 (gold medal); PAFA Ann., 1902

Comments: Created works of decorative art in bronze. Founded the Rookwood Pottery Co., Cincinnati, in 1880, to compete with Louise McLaughlin's Cincinnati Pottery Club. Rookwood had an important role in the American art pottery movement. Widowed in 1885, she married Bellamy Storer in 1886. In 1890 she sold the pottery company and began studying painting.

Sources: WW47; Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists; Jeanne M. Weimann, The Fair Women, 416-419; Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons; The Golden Age: Cincinnati Painters of the Nineteenth Century, 29-30; Falk, Exh. Record Series.