Bessie Barrington Taylor, Daughters of the Confederacy at the Gamble Mansion, Ellenton, 1940. Oil on canvas, 26 ¼ by 35 inches.
Bessie Barrington Taylor was chairman of the art department of the Bradenton Woman’s Club and an active Art League of Manatee County member. Originally from Andalusia, Alabama, she received her academic training at Troy State Teachers College and the University of Alabama. She studied portrait painting with Wayman Adams in Birmingham and was a regular student at the Ringling School of Art. In February 1940 the Art League opened a one-woman exhibit of Taylor’s work. More than 130 people attended the opening reception. One of her paintings was “a canvas in appealing tones that employs the well known façade of the Gamble Mansion, Ellenton, as the background for an assemblage of members of the Daughters of the Confederacy in a lawn party on the mansion grounds.” She is listed in Davenport’s Art Reference, 2001 and Who’s Who in American Art.
Born: 1895.
Education: University of Alabama; Alabama State Teachers College; Ringling School of Art.
Membership: Art League of Manatee County; Florida Federation of Art; Southern States Art League.
Exhibits: Art League of Manatee County, 1st Annual Exhibition, Garden Club Rooms, Memorial Pier, Bradenton, February 8-21, 1937, oils, Pasco, White Swan, Portrait of a Girl, Ibis and Crane; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual Exhibition, St. Augustine, December 2-5, 1937, Magnolias; Art League of Manatee County, 2nd Annual Exhibition, February 27-March 7, 1938, oils, Sea Oats, Hibiscus, Magnolias, Barrington Beau Vue Home, Nasturtiums, watercolors, Floral, Forest Erosion; Art League of Manatee County, 4th Annual, Memorial Pier, Bradenton, February 18-March 2, 1940, oils, Ben and Billy, Dutchman’s Broom, Cypress Swamp, Petunias, Magnolias-No.1; Gamble Mansion, Judah Benjamin Memorial, Bradenton, 1940, Garden Tea at Judah P. Benjamin Memorial.
