Mary Agnes Yerkes

Mary Agnes Yerkes
Mary Agnes in her studio.
Born	Mary Agnes Yerkes August 9, 1886 Oak Park, Illinois
Died	November 8, 1989 San Mateo, California
Nationality	USA
Education	School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rockford College, Chicago Academy of Fine Arts
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Crocker Art Museum, Illinois State Museum, Springville Museum of Art, Yosemite Museum NPS, Eiteljorg Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Tucson Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Movement	American Impressionism

Mary Agnes Yerkes, (/ˈjɜːrkiːz/ YUR-keez; August 9, 1886 – November 8, 1989), was an American Impressionist painter, photographer and artisan. She was skilled in the media of oil, pastel and watercolor. Her professional career was cut short by the Great Depression, but she still continued to paint well into her nineties with a passion for her craft and nature. She is noted for her plein-air painting while camping the American West and its National Parks.

Mary Agnes Yerkes was born on August 9, 1886, in Oak Park, Illinois. Her parents, Charles Sherman Yerkes and Mary Greenlees Yerkes, had moved to their North Grove Avenue home a few years earlier from Ohio. She was the third child of four siblings; Reuben Archibald, Alice Agnew, and Charles Greenlees. Mary Agnes graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1906, and became an accomplished local artist.

Her father died in 1908. In 1913, her mother commissioned a house from architect John S. Van Bergen. Van Bergen was a draftsman and then a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright. Where most architects catered to wealthy clients, Van Bergen showed a particular interest in designing for both career women and artists. Their home was specifically designed by Van Bergen with an upstairs art studio for Mary Agnes. He even designed some of the first floor's interior trim in to frame some of Mary Agnes' mural paintings.

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