20th century

Drying Sails, Gloucester

American, 1883 - 1951

Fern Isabel Coppedge studied with Impressionist landscape painter Daniel Garber (American, 1880-1958) at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design) before moving to New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1929. She was one of the few women artists associated with the Pennsylvania Impressionist group and became well known for her paintings of Bucks County landscapes, winter scenes, and marine subjects. This canvas depicts the harbor in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she spent many summers. Although undated, the work’s imaginative color scheme suggests that Coppedge painted it fairly late in her career.