Cora Kelley Ward

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Cora Kelley Ward (1920–1989) was an American painter and photographer from Eunice, Louisiana. She moved to New York City in 1955 and lived in Greenwich Village, where she continued making art and documenting the scene around her. Ward studied painting at the Newcomb Art School at Tulane University and earned a Master of Arts from Hunter College in New York. She also spent time at Black Mountain College, where she learned Modernism from European artists who taught there after fleeing Hitler’s regime.

Her work is linked to Abstract Expressionism, especially its second generation, and she explored art’s most basic ideas. Ward is best remembered for photographing the New York art world from the 1950s to the 1980s, often attending events with a camera in hand to capture the energy and interactions of artists and galleries. She studied under Josef Albers, and Clement Greenberg was a lifelong friend; Greenberg wrote positively about her work after her death.

Although she produced many works, Ward received recognition late. After she died, her family donated many paintings to museums and other institutions. A large part of her estate—about a thousand paintings—was given to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum in Louisiana. Ward died in 1989 from cancer, at about 69 years old.