Ethel Mars (artist)

Ethel Mars
Ethel Mars, 1924 (passport photo)
Born	1876 Springfield, Illinois
Died	1956 or after 1958
Resting place	Saint Paul de Vence Cemetery, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France 43°41′38″N 7°07′16″E / 43.694°N 7.121°E / 43.694; 7.121
Nationality	American
Education	Art Academy of Cincinnati
Known for	Provincetown Prints

Ethel Mars (1876–1956 or after 1958) was an American woodblock print artist, known for her white-line woodcut prints, also known as Provincetown Prints, and a children's book illustrator. She had a lifelong relationship with fellow artist Maud Hunt Squire, with whom she lived in Paris and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Ethel Mars was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1876 to Alonzo Mars, a railroad clerk. During most of her childhood, Mars and her parents lived with her mother's parents. She began creating art as a young girl, for which she won prizes at the Illinois State Fair. Mars attended socials and church teas and was known to have a "voice of wonderful power and sweetness."

Having secured a scholarship, she attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati beginning in 1892. While there, she met and began a lifelong relationship with Maud Hunt Squire. Lewis Henry Meakin and Frank Duveneck provided instruction, which included drawing, illustration, and painting.Edna Boies Hopkins was a friend of both Squire and Mars throughout their lives.

Mars began working as a book illustrator in New York, as did Squire, after she completed her training in Cincinnati. She continued to win prizes at the Illinois State Fairs during her trips home to visit her parents. Mars and Squire traveled to Europe beginning in 1900. Both Mars and Squire created illustrations for Children of Our Town by Carolyn Wells and Adventures of Ulysses by Charles Lamb in 1902.

During one of their trips, they visited Munich in 1904, where Mars learned to make color woodcut prints. About 1905, Mars made the print of a Paris street scene, Untitled (Woman at Shop Window), the "decoratively patterned" work is similar to the works of Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard.