Ethel Louise Coe, “Growing Leaf, an Indian,” Oil on Canvas, 1917

Photograph of a painting.

“Growing Leaf” is a three-quarter length portrait of an Indigenous-American woman. She fills the scene, her head just reaching the upper limit of the canvas. The figure’s head and body are draped in a vivid red blanket or shawl with a red-, white-, green-, and blue-banded, possibly floral, design near the edge. The garment has a woven fringe. Growing Leaf stands in a patch of corn. It is mature enough to have tasseled; some brown silk is visible, and several stalks reach above her head. Purple mountains are visible in the distant background through the corn, and the pale sky is streaked with yellow. Coe showed this painting in the Twenty-Second Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity. The show ran from February 14 – March 17, 1918.

24 1/8 x 20 1/4″

(1878-1938)

Ethel Louise Coe, a native of Chicago, was a painter, printmaker, illustrator, and teacher. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. She also studied in Provincetown, Massachusetts and in Madrid under Sorolla-y-Bastida. She taught art at the University of Chicago and at Northwestern University from 1923-1926.

Coe’s work is included in the collections of the City of Chicago, the Kohler Gallery (Wisconsin), the Sioux City (Iowa) Art Museum and the Vanderpoel Art Association in Chicago.