Fern Isabel COPPEDGE
1883–1951, USA
Born in Decatur, Illinois, Fern Coppedge began art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and then went to New York to study with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League. She also studied with John Carlson and Henry Snell and then attended classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
She settled in Pennsylvania, living both in Philadelphia and New Hope where she did many of the winter scenes for which she is known. She had met Daniel Garber, a New Hope painter, at the Pennsylvania Academy, and she moved to New Hope in Bucks County in 1920.
For 30 years, she traveled between there and her studio in Philadelphia. She also spent many summers painting harbor genre in Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts. She exhibited for many years with a group of women called the "Ten Philadelphia Painters."
Her style of Impressionism emphasized bright, contrasting colors, and she is sometimes compared to the Fauves and European post-impressionists.