Jenny Eakin Delony

Delony was born in Washington, Arkansas, on May 13, 1866,[1] to Alchyny Turner Delony, a lawyer, and Elizabeth Pearson Delony.[2][3]

She received a gold medal in music and art when she studied at the Wesleyan Female Institution in Staunton, Virginia.[4] Delony began her professional study at Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1886 to 1888. At least two years followed in Paris, where Delony studied at the Académie Julian, the Académie Delécluse, and in the atelier of painter Paul-Louis Delance.[5]

She later studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts[5] from 1892 to 1893, then in Venice sometime prior to 1895 with Italian painter Stefano Novo. Delony entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1896, which was the first year women were admitted there. The same year she would be among the first women to study artistic anatomy at the École de Médecine in Paris. She also studied at some time under the American painter William Merritt Chase and was his personal secretary at Shinnecock, a summer school Chase ran on Southampton on Long Island from 1891 to 1902.[6]

Jenny Eakin Delony was one of the first woman artist from Arkansas to gain a reputation as a successful painter in the United States and internationally.[7] She was a member of the American Artists Professional League,[4] Association of Women Painters and Sculptors and the National Arts Club, both in New York.[8] Delony became one of the first women members and one of the first women to exhibit at the National Academy of Design.[9] Her works were exhibited at Philadelphia, Boston and New York miniature painters societies, the Woman's Art Club of New York, National Academy of Design, and the New York Water Color Club.[4]

Delony married Nathaniel J. Rice of Denver, Colorado, on December 10, 1891, he died in 1893.

Her second marriage was to Paul A. Meyrowitz, on November 19, 1910[4] in Chicago, Illinois.[13]

She was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Daughters of the American Revolution.[4]

Many examples of Rice's work can be viewed today in public collections, including the following portraits:

• A Southern Gentleman portrait at Historic Washington State Park[10]
• An African American and many other works are at the Historic Arkansas Museum[9]
• Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the Arkansas State Capital[8]
• Mrs. Jefferson Davis (Varina Davis) for the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia[4]
• Governor George Washington Donaghey, Logan H. Roots, J. T. W. Tillar, are at the Arkansas History Commission[14]
• Governor Thomas Chipman McRae is located on the North Wing, first floor of the Arkansas State Capitol[10]
• Bishop Henry Niles Pierce is in the office of the Diocese of Arkansas at Trinity Episcopal Church in Little Rock[10]
• George G. Williams, New York Clearing House and Chemical National Bank[8]

She also made portraits of Hetty Green, Bishop Henry Niles Pierce, William Sherer, Dr. George Taylor Stewart, and Spencer Trask. Her painting of the 'La Grange College of Alabama is at the Museum of Tennessee Valley Historic Society, Tuscumbia, Alabama[4]

Her work was shown with Maud Hold, Josephine Graham and Elsie Freund in 2007 at the "Women Artists in Arkansas" exhibition at the Historic Arkansas Museum.[7]

• Former Arkansan Paints Portraits." Arkansas Gazette. May 20, 1923, p. 16.
• Opitz, Glen B., ed. Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1987.
• Who's Who in America 1948–1949. Vol. 25. Chicago: A. N. Marquis, 1949.