Eleanor Norcross
| Eleanor Norcross | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Ella Augusta Norcross June 19, 1854 Fitchburg, Massachusetts |
| Died | October 19, 1923 (aged 69) Fitchburg, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Massachusetts Normal Art School, William Merritt Chase, Alfred Stevens |
| Known for | Establishing Fitchburg Art Museum |
| Notable work | My Studio |
| Movement | Impressionism |
Eleanor Norcross, born Ella Augusta Norcross (1854 – 1923), was an American painter who studied under William Merritt Chase and Alfred Stevens. She lived the majority of her adult life in Paris, France as an artist and collector and spent the summers in her hometown of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Norcross painted Impressionist portraits and still lifes, and is better known for her paintings of interiors.
Her father provided her a comfortable living, under the that she would not sell her paintings. With a life mission to provide people from her hometown the ability to view great works of art, Norcross collected art, made copies of paintings of Old Masters, and systematically documented decorative arts from the 12th through the 19th century. Her funding and art collection were used to establish the Fitchburg Art Museum.
In 1924, her works were shown posthumously in Paris at the Louvre and Salon d'Automne, where Norcross was the first American to have had a retrospective. Her works were also shown the following year at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Ella Augusta Norcross was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Boston, to Amasa Norcross and Susan Augusta Norcross. Her father was an attorney, Fitchburg's first mayor, state senator, and United States representative. Her mother, Susan, had been a school teacher in the Fitchburg area and during the Civil War was a leader of the Ladies' Soldiers Aid Society, which provided clothing, blankets, and other supplies to soldiers from Fitchburg and other locations in the state of Massachusetts. In 1863, her three-year-old brother Nelson died of scarlet fever, and when she was 14, her mother died of consumption. Norcross and her father, the remaining household members, had a close relationship.
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