Mary Shepard Greene
Mary Shepard Greene Blumenschein (1869–1958) was an American artist, illustrator, and jewelry designer. She was born in New York City and studied at Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn and the Pratt Institute. At 17 she went to Paris in 1886 to study with Raphaël Collin.
From 1906 to 1946 she exhibited her paintings at the National Academy of Design. In 1905 she married fellow artist Ernest L. Blumenschein in Paris. They moved to New York in 1909, where they had a daughter named Helen. In New York they taught at Pratt and illustrated for magazines such as McClure’s, American, and Century.
Her husband discovered Taos, New Mexico after an accident in 1898, and Mary first visited Taos in 1913. After the sale of an inherited house made them financially independent, they moved to Taos in 1919 and joined the Taos Society of Artists.
Her painting Acoma Legend was shown in the American Art Today exhibition at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In the 1920s she returned to Pratt to study jewelry making, and her jewelry was exhibited in 1956 at the Museum of International Folk Art. Her paintings are part of the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. She was also included in the 2018 exhibition Women in Paris 1850-1900.
Awards and honors include: third place at the Paris Salon in 1900; a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1902 (the second American woman to win it); a silver medal at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis; and the Julia A. Shaw Memorial Award from the National Academy of Design in 1915.
Mary Shepard Greene died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1958. She was married to Ernest L. Blumenschein.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:20 (CET).