Sara Ward Conley

Sara Ward Conley (December 21, 1859 – May 6, 1944) was an American artist from Nashville, Tennessee.

Sara Ward Conley
A young white woman wearing a flat cap with a plume, and a bulky coat with wide lapels.
Sara Ward Conley, from an 1896 publication.
Born
Sara Ward

December 21, 1859
Nashville, Tennessee, US
DiedMay 6, 1944
Nashville, Tennessee, US
NationalityAmerican
Other namesS. W. Conley
Occupation(s)artist, designer

Early life

Sara Ward Conley was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on December 21, 1859, the daughter of William Eldred Ward and Amanda Eliza Hudson Ward.[1] She was educated at the Nashville school her father founded and ran, Ward Seminary,[2] with further art studies in Paris and Rome.[1][3]

Career
Illustration of the Woman's Building at the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, 1896, a two-story classical design with tall columns across the central block.
The Woman's Building at the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, 1896, designed by Sara Ward Conley.

Ward painted society portraits in Nashville.[4] She also taught art[5] as director of Ward-Conley Studios.[6] In 1896 she designed the large two-story Woman's Building at the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition,[7][8] modeled on Andrew Jackson's Nashville home, the Hermitage. She also chaired the Fine Arts Committee[9] that chose art for display at the exposition.[1] "Her plans for the Woman's Building were selected by the judges without a dissenting voice," according to a report at the time.[10]

She contributed illustrations to several issues of The Olympian magazine in 1903.[11][12][13][14] In 1910, she loaned historical objects to the Appalachian Exposition.[15] While staying at the Battle Creek Sanitarium for health reasons in 1913, she painted a mural and decorative panels in the institution's lobby and parlors.[16] Her art was displayed at the Tennessee State Fair in 1920,[17] and at the fifth annual exhibit of Tennessee artists in Nashville in 1924.[18] Four of her paintings were included in the Spring Art Exhibit of the Centennial Club in 1925.[19]

She and her sister, Mrs. John DeWitt, hosted meetings of the Ward Seminary alumnae association, and both served as officers in the organization.[2]

Personal life

Sara Ward married John Withrin Conley in 1882; her husband died in 1883. Their only child died as a young girl in 1886.[20] Conley survived typhoid fever in 1897[1] and "a severe surgical operation" in New York in 1900.[21] She used a wheelchair for the rest of her life.[22] She died in 1944, aged 84 years, in Nashville.[1] Her portraits of Willie Blount and William Blount were displayed at William Blount Mansion in Knoxville.[23]

References
  1. Dee Gee Lester. "Sara Ward Conley". Tennessee Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  2. "Alumnae Ass'n Elects Officers". The Tennessean. November 8, 1913. p. 4. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Harvey, Bruce G. (2014-10-30). World's Fairs in a Southern Accent: Atlanta, Nashville, and Charleston, 1895–1902. Univ. of Tennessee Press. p. 98. ISBN 9781621900788.
  4. "Among the Artists". American Art News. 5: 4. November 24, 1906.
  5. "New Studio Flat". The Tennessean. August 30, 1895. p. 8. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Art Schools, Tennessee". American Art Annual. MacMillan Company. 1916. p. 251.
  7. Lawrence, Bobby (1998-10-01). Tennessee Centennial: Nashville 1897. Arcadia Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 9780738568690.
  8. Boisseau, Tracey Jean; Markwyn, Abigail M. (2010). Gendering the Fair: Histories of Women and Gender at World's Fairs. University of Illinois Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780252077494.
  9. Justi, Herman (1898). Official History of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition: Opened May 1, and Closed October 30, 1897. Press of the Brandon Printing Company. p. 157.
  10. "Women of the Tennessee Exposition". Peterson's Magazine. 7: 358. April 1897.
  11. Van Zile, Edward S. (March 1903). "With the Prince of Adventurers". The Olympian Magazine. 1: 205.
  12. Conley, Sara Ward (May 1903). "It is May". The Olympian Magazine. 1: frontispiece.
  13. Conley, Sara Ward (June 1903). "Dona Catalina". The Olympian Magazine. I: (frontispiece).
  14. Wiley, Garnet Noel (July 1903). "The Ballad of Lady Yoland". The Olympian Magazine. 1: 79.
  15. "The Conley Loan Collection". The Journal and Tribune. September 17, 1910. p. 16. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. "Lobby Notes". The Battle Creek Idea. 6: 16. September 15, 1913.
  17. "Art in the Tennessee State Fair". The American Magazine of Art. 11: 484–485. November 1920.
  18. "Opening of State Artists' Fifth Exhibition is Brilliant Event". The Tennessean. April 16, 1924. p. 7. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "Reception Opens Spring Art Exhibit at Centennial Club". The Tennessean. April 23, 1925. p. 6. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. Tennessee Records: Bible Records and Marriage Bonds. Genealogical Publishing Com. 2009. p. 206. ISBN 9780806300009.
  21. "Mrs. Sara Ward-Conley". The Tennessean. July 26, 1900. p. 6. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. "Women Who Painted Blount Portraits Dies". Johnson City Press. May 7, 1944. p. 2. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. "Blount Artist is Dead at Nashville". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. May 6, 1944. p. 7. Retrieved October 4, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  • "Charles Ready" (1925) by Sara Ward Conley, at Tennessee Portrait Project, National Society of Colonial Dames of America in Tennessee.
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