Lucy Angeline Bacon (July 30, 1857 – October 17, 1932) was a Californian artist known for her California Impressionist oil paintings of florals, landscapes and still lifes. She studied in Paris under the Impressionist Camille Pissarro. She is the only known Californian artist to have studied under any of the great French Impressionists.
Bacon was related to Robert K. Vickery through the marriage of her niece Ruth. In the 1890s, his father was a part-owner of a San Franciscan gallery, Vickery, Atkins & Torrey, the first gallery to exhibit the Impressionism in San Francisco.[3]
Camille Pissarro, impressionist painter and Bacon's mentor
Career
Bacon later moved to Éragny, where she made impressionist-style paintings. By 1898, she lived in San Jose and was exhibiting paintings such as A San Jose Garden at the San Francisco Art Association.[6] She moved to California in the hope of improving a chronic illness which limited her ability to paint.[2] She taught at Washburn Preparatory School in San Jose[7] and painted from her home studio.
In the spring of 1902, her works were exhibited at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco.[8] In 1905, while Lucy Bacon renounced her painting career and devoted herself to the Christian Science religion,[2] possibly finding it eased her health problems. She continued to teach art.
By 1909, she was living in San Francisco.[citation needed] Bacon was a member of the Indian Fair Committee of the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs (NMAIA) and Eastern Association on Indian Affairs (EAIA) in 1927, which exhibited works by Native American artists.[9]
