biography of May Wilson Watkins PRESTON (1873-1949)

Birth place: NYC

Death place: Easthampton, NY

Addresses: East Hampton, NY

Profession: Illustrator

Studied: ASL with Wm. Merritt Chase, Robert Henri & John H. Twachtman, 1892-97; NAD; Whistler Sch., Paris, 1899; Chase's New York Sch. Art.

Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1903 (as Watkins); 1906-11 (4 annuals); NAD, 1907-11 (4 annuals); AIC, 1907; Armory Show, 1913; Pan.-Pac. Expo, San Francisco, 1915 (med.); London & Paris.

Member: Women's AC, NYC (founder at age 16; later became known as NAWA); SI (co-founder, 1904); Assoc. Am. P&S (co-founder, 1912; sponsored the Armory Show of 1913)

Comments: Her husband Thomas H. Watkins died in 1900, just two years after they were married. She then began a career in New York City as an illustrator while continuing her studies at Chase's New York School of Art. In 1903 she married James Moore Preston, with whom she co-founded the Society of Illustrators. For years she was the only woman member of this group, and her illustrations appeared in popular magazines and books by F. Scott Fitzgerald and P.G. Wodehouse. Her easel paintings were primarily genre studies and figure pieces in the same realistic spirit as artists of the Ashcan School. The Prestons moved to a remodeled barn in South Hampton, NY, at the beginning of the Depression, where she developed a skin infection that prevented her from painting.

Sources: WW27; Pisano, One Hundred Years...the National Association of Women Artists, 76; Falk, Exh. Record Series.

Legals