Hildreth Meiere

Hildreth Meière (New York City 1892–1961) was an American artist and designer active in the first half of the twentieth century, especially in connection with Art Deco architecture. Among her extensive work are the dynamic roundels of Dance, Drama, and Song at Radio City Music Hall, the Creation cycle and stained-glass windows at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church (Manhattan), and the iconographic suites at the Nebraska State Capitol, the National Academy of Sciences.

After studying at New York's Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, Meiere studied in Florence. Upon studying the works of the Renaissance Masters, she is quoted as saying, "After that I could not be satisfied with anything less than a big wall to paint on. I just had to be a mural painter."

She furthered her studies at the Art Students League of New York, California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (now San Francisco Art Institute), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. After training as a mapmaker, Meière served her country as a draftsman in the U.S. Navy during World War I.

Finding work in a male-dominated field was difficult for her, so she began her career as a costume designer for theater actresses, a field more common for women at the time. In 1923 she was commissioned to decorate the dome of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Meiere and sculptor Lee Lawrie became members of the loose "repertory company" of artists assembled by Goodhue, and she came to work on many different projects with him. One of these, the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, which she began before the NAS dome was even completed, became her pièce de résistance featuring eight separate examples of her work.

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