Sarah Purser

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Sarah Purser (March 22, 1848 - August 7, 1943) was an Irish artist. She was born in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin. She studied at the Dublin School of Art and then in Paris at the Academie Julian and worked mostly as a portraitist. Through her talent and energy, and owing to her friendship with the Gore-Booths she was very successful in obtaining commissions, famously commenting

"I went through the British aristocracy like the measles."

However, Bruce Arnold (1977) notes

"some of her finest and most sensitive work was not strictly portraiture, for example, An Irish Idyll in the Ulster Museum, and Le Petit Déjeuner [in the National Gallery of Ireland]."

Sarah Purser became very wealthy through astute investments, particularly in Guinness. She was very active in the art world in Dublin and was involved in the setting up of the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, persuading the Irish government to provide Charlemont House to house the gallery. She was also associated with the stained glass movement, founding a stained-glass workshop, An Túr Gloine, in 1903.

In 1923 she became the first female member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

[edit] References

Sarah Purser at the Princess Grace Irish Library
RTÉ biographical note
Bruce Arnold (1977). Irish art: a concise history (2 ed.) London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20148-X.
John O'Grady(1996)The Life and Work of Sarah Purser Four Courts Press. ISBN 1-85182-241-0