Louise Zaring, Venetian Pool, Coral Gable, oil on canvas laid on board, 14 by 18 inches. Signed lower left.
Louise Zaring was a gifted impressionist who spent half of her long life working in Miami. In 1930 she and Ethel Schlamp co-founded the Miami Art League. Zaring grew up in Greencastle, Indiana at a time when women were not part of the art establishment.
Born in Cincinnati in 1872, but raised in Indiana, it was only after years of study in art, from the Art Students League in New York City to four years at the Academie Colarossi in Paris, that in 1907, Zaring’s Woman Knitting, was regarded as “one of the cleverest productions by an Indiana artist.” The Richmond Item, Richmond, Indiana, February 13, 1918: “Louise Zaring is one of Indiana’s most gifted women artists and she is represented notably in this exhibit with two stunning things, both semi marines… in bright sunlight. Mrs. Zaring paints with authority. She knows what she is doing. Her brush work is fine, assured, and confident and her color harmonious. She excels in the painting of summer luminosity, summer sunshine on water, rippling radiances, of alluring, lazy, summer-tinted days…. Zaring’s canvasses are the most representative of the artist and striking in the present exhibit.”
Louise Zaring, A Portrait of Eleanor, oil on canvas, 37 by 27 inches. Titled and inscribed verso. Bequeathed to Miami Art Leage, 1970.
Painting in an impressionistic style, using vivid color, liberal paint application, and arresting composition, she exhibited in the Paris Salon, many American galleries, and was one of several Floridians to show at a 1942 Rockefeller Center, New York, art exhibit. When she died in Miami on September 23,1970, age 97, Zaring left her home and a large cache of her paintings to the Miami Art League, the organization she helped found in 1930.
Louise Zaring, oil on board, 21.5 by 15.5 inches. Estate of the artist, bequeathed to the Miami Art League, 1970.
Twenty-eight years after her death in 1970 in Miami, Charles Cotayo of the Miami Herald called Zaring; “a woman of wealth, education, and passion for art, traveled the world and painted her visions in impressionist strokes, the style she shared with her friends Degas, Garrido and Renoir. Zaring refused to sell her work before she died at age 97, instead leaving the bulk of her paintings to the Miami Art League.”
Born: 1872, Cincinnati, Ohio. Died: September 23, 1970, Miami. Education: Walters College, St. Louis; Evansville Commercial College, Indiana; Greencastle, Indiana with John Henry Twachtman and William Forsyth; Art Students’ League, NYC; Art Institute of Chicago; Academie Vitti and Academie Colarossi in Paris (1894-1897) with Luc-Olivier Merson, Frederick MacMonnies, Edmond Francois Aman-Jean; Raphael Collin; Julian Dupre; Leon Eduardo Garrido; Provincetown Art Association with Charles Hawthorne. Membership: Florida Federation of Art; Miami Art League; Blue Dome Fellowship, Miami, board of directors; Paris Woman’s Art Association; Provincetown Art Association; North Shore Art Association; Indiana Society of Artists; Washington Art Club; Richmond (Indiana) Art Association. Exhibits: Hoosier Salon; St. Louis Exposition, 1904; Richmond Art Association, Indianapolis, prize, 1907, honorable mention for Woman Knitting; Provincetown Art Association, 1917; Richmond Art Association, January 1919, The Pier Girl and A Provincetown Wharf; Tropical League of Fine Arts, exhibit of local artists at Floridian Hotel, February 1926, ship scenes including Gloucester Harbor At Noon; Miami Woman’s Club, Artists’ Salon, February 1929; Miami Woman’s Club, February 1932; National League of American Pen Women, national meeting at Biltmore Hotel, March 1935, 1st prize in oil; Miami Woman’s Club 7th Annual, February 1935; Miami Federal Galleries, in old post office, April 1936, elimination judging for First National Exhibit of American Art in New York City, Mussel Rocks; Blue Dome Fellowship, Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach Library and Art Center, January 1937; Miami Woman’s Club annual at Miami Federal Galleries, old post office, February 1937; Florida Federation of Art Annual, St Petersburg Federal Gallery, February 1937, Waiting; Miami Woman’s Club, 11th Annual Artists Breakfast, March 1938, Sunshine; Florida Federation of Art, All Florida Exhibit, Palm Beach, April 1938, Mussel Shoals; Miami Art League at Burdines, March 1939, Gloucester Inner Harbor; Miami Art League, at Miami Beach Public Library, December 1939; Miami Art League at Miami Beach Public Library, November 1940, award of merit, landscape; Studio of Associated Artists, 111 N.E. Third avenue Miami, January 1941; Blue Dome Fellowship, January 1941, Miami Beach Library, Red Barn; Housekeepers’ Club annual, Coconut Grove, February 1942; Blue Dome Fellowship, College Cupboard, Giralda Avenue, Coral Gables, April 1942 with Myrtle Taylor Bradford, Gloucester fishing scenes, Sail Loft, Gloucester Docks, Gloucester Waterway, Gloucester Street Scene and Nude, Girl on Rock, Head of a Portuguese, Figure at the Window; Blue Dome Fellowship, Miami, December 1942; Miami Art League, Miami Associated Artists new gallery, 1822 Biscayne Blvd, April 1943; Miami Art League, Burdine’s Department Store, November 1945; Florida Federation of Art 19th Annual, Miami Beach, December 7, 1945, Late Afternoon, Sails at Sunset, member jury of awards; Royal Poinciana festival, Miami Bayfront Park, June 1946, honorable mention, Coral Gables Pool; Miami Art League Annual, Miami Beach Art Center, November 1946; Blue Dome Fellowship, first exhibit after World War II, in cooperation with Miami Art League, Miami Woman’s Club, Burdine’s, February 1947, Fishing Pier; Miami Boat Show, Municipal Auditorium, Bayfront Park, March 1947, 1st prize, seascape, Mussel Rock; Blue Dome Fellowship annual, Miami Beach Art Center, December 1947-January 1948, still life, Metal plate, Jung and Drapery, best still life, and My Little Boat; Blue Dome Fellowship, at Housekeeper’s Clubhouse, 2985 Bayshore Drive, January-February 1948; Miami Boat Show Art Exhibit, February 1948, honorable mention, marine division, Cold Storage; Miami Art League, Miami Beach Art Center, November 1948, best still life, Flowers; Miami Art League, 1st Downtown Gallery Exhibit, Florida Power and Light Co., Ingraham Building, January 1949; Blue Dome Fellowship Annual, Miami Beach Art Center, January-February 1949, honorable mention, oil, Flowers; Miami Woman’s Club 21st Annual, Bayshore Drive, February 1949, best marine; Colony Theater, June 1949, 18 paintings in lobby of theater during showing of the film Mourning Becomes Electra; Miami Art League Annual, Miami Beach Art Center, November 1949, Marigolds; Blue Dome Fellowship at Miami Beach Art Center, April 1950, Nasturtiums; Dade County Coconut Harvest Festival, Crandon Park, May 1950, 225 paintings on exhibit; Miami Boat Show, Dinner Key auditorium, February 1957, 1st for fishing or dock scenes in oil, Gloucester.
