Nike Parton, Salute, oil on board, 14 by 20inches. Signed lower right and titled verso.
Nike Parton served in World War II in the Women’s Army Corp (WAC). In 1950 she used the GI Bill to study at the Ringling School of Art. Parton chose the Ringling because, “I liked painting outdoors, and chose the Ringling…where I could be outside painting landscapes the year round.”
Nike Parton, oil on board, 15 by 11 inches. Signed lower right.
Parton worked one year for the Ringling Circus making masks and props and then twenty years as an instructor at the Manatee County Art League. In a career spanning over fifty years Parton worked in her studio on Siesta Key and conducted plein air teaching sessions. In summers she taught at the New England Art League and the Barn Studio in Brookfield, New Hampshire. Parton was a member of Sarasota’s Petticoat Painters, one of the country’s oldest continuing women’s art groups. She exhibited in Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and in Florida with the Florida Federation of Art and the Florida Artists Group.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune in 1976 quoted Parton, “Painting shouldn’t be just making a picture with no underlying truth, it should involve looking at rhythms and deeper meanings in nature. This gives the artist a greater sense of awareness. Art is learning to see deeper. I try to show my students what nature has to teach, and how to paint people and their relationship to their environment.”
Born: 1922, New York City. Education: Ringling School of Art; Art Students League, NYC; Connaway Art School. Membership: Florida Federation of Art; Florida Artists Group; Creative Arts Group of The Tampa Bay Area; Art League of Manatee County; Sarasota Art Association. Exhibits: Sarasota Art Association, 2nd Annual Experimental Show, January 1952, mobile, Street Scene, 2nd prize, Terry Art Institute Award; Art League of Manatee County, Members Exhibit, January 1953, 1st prize, Who’s There; Florida State Fair, Tampa, February 1953, watercolor; Art League of Manatee County, November 15-27, 1953, with William Hartman, Weston Warren; Manatee County Fair, January 1954, prize; Florida Artist Group, 6th Annual Circuit, Palm Beach Art League, April 1955, Cuban Fruit Vendor; Art League of Manatee County, All Members Exhibit, October 1955, 209 Ninth St. W. Bradenton, watercolor, Late Night, oil, Cortez; Manatee County Art Center, March 4-16, 1956, exhibit with Eugene White; Florida Artist Group, 9th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1958-1959, an oil, Calm; Art League of Manatee County, Pure Watercolor Member Exhibit, January 1959, honorable mention, Rainy Weather; Bradenton Art Center at Manatee Junior College, January 1959, watercolor, At Rest; Art League of Manatee County, Annual Members Juried Exhibit, March 1959, Undeveloped, Hoein; Florida Federation of Art 33rd Annual Exhibit, Tampa, November 1959, best landscape, a watercolor, Rainy Weather; Sarasota Art Association, Members’ Annual Juried Exhibition, February 1960, Earth’s Thrust; Art League of Manatee County, Members Annual, February 1960, watercolor, Pastoral; Florida State Fair, Tampa, exhibited between, 1956-1962; Creative Arts Group of Tampa Bay Area, Drawing and Print Competition, January 1961, Contemporary Arts Gallery, Pinellas Park; Florida Artist Group, 14th Annual Exhibition, 1963-1964 at Tampa Art Institute, an oil, On the Beach; Art League of Manatee County, January 1979, 3rd prize, My Lost Youth; one woman shows, Sarasota, Bradenton. Permanent collections, University of Florida; Stetson University.
