Jane Brewster Reid (1862-1966), a resident of Rochester, New York, was a landscape painter who spent time during her summer months painting at Nantucket, Massachusetts beginning as early as 1891. She was born in Chicago but moved east and by 1907 was exhibiting with the Boston Art Club. Her work has been exhibited at the University of Rochester, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Memorial Art Gallery, The Nantucket Historical Association, and The Artists Association of Nantucket.
Her soft and endearing watercolors idealize many classic Nantucket settings such as Stone Alley, the Old Mill, Sankaty Head Light, Swain’s Farm, and numerous ’Sconset houses. A transitional figure working before and during the establishment of the Art Colony, her early watercolors were included in Henry S.Wyer’s 1902 booklet Sea-Girt Nantucket.
During the height of the colony, she advertised her work as “Miss Reid’s Water Color Paintings/Nantucket Subjects” at Miss Sylvia’s Shop, 16 Pleasant Street, and by 1938 was showing at the Swimming Duck, 40 Centre Street. Once Reid chose a favored setting, she often produced numerous copies of the same scene, occasionally varying the size. Her sketching expeditions covered the island, but she was especially drawn to the quaintness and romantic charm of ’Sconset. She lived to be 103 years old.
Source:
The Cooley Gallery
