She was also a frequent exhibitor at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City her last one-woman show there was in April 1945.Ĭustis's mature style emerged in scenes of the streets, wharves, and drydocks of seacoast villages from Maine to Massachusetts, which she visited during the summers of 19. Custis exhibited widely in many of the Washington art societies and clubs for much of her career. Tarbell, one of the Ten American Painters, who became the Corcoran School's principal in 1918. Custis began three years of formal art training in the autumn of 1915 at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, and was guided and inspired by Impressionist artist Edmund C. She was distantly related to Martha Custis Washington, America's first First Lady. Like many artists of the day, she was profoundly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, and her adaptation of the aesthetic by 1924 led to her most productive artistic period.Įleanor Custis hailed from a socially prominent Washington, D.C., family. Her use of flat areas of color delineated by dark contours is reminiscent of the aesthetics of woodblock printing.

While Custis's subjects are diverse, her style is consistent and distinctive throughout this body of work. Eleanor Park Custis painted scenes as varied as the artist's travels: from her hometown of Washington, D.C., to the coastal towns of New England from the prosperous fishing villages of Brittany, to Venice and the mountain villages and lakes of northern Italy.

Betinia steinke