Nell Blaine

Nell Blair Walden Blaine (July 10, 1922–November 14, 1996) was an American landscape painter, expressionist, and watercolorist.

From Richmond, Virginia, she had most of her career based in New York City and Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Nell Blaine was born on July 10, 1922, in Richmond, Virginia, to Harry Wellington Blaine and his second wife Eudora Catherine Garrison.

She was cross-eyed and sickly as a child.

When she was two, her parents realized that she was extremely nearsighted and had her fitted with glasses.

She later recalled her excitement over suddenly being able to see the world around her as she rushed around exclaiming "water, tree, and house."

After Nell was born, her father continued to mourn his first wife, who had died in childbirth.

He expressed his grief as anger toward his daughter, in the form of verbal and often physical abuse.

His second wife, Eudora, had taught grade-school for ten years before Nell's birth.

When Nell's health was too fragile for her to attend school, Eudora Blaine tutored the girl at home for a year.

At the age of five, Nell told her mother she wanted to make art.

Blaine's father lost his job as a lumber inspector, and had to settle for lesser pay during the Great Depression.

The Blaine grandfather moved in with the family in its already crowded space.

Blaine loved her grandfather and recalled that he loved to dance, could crack jokes, and told brilliant stories.

She was teased at school because of her crossed eyes, and fought back physically.

She was described as pale and undernourished; her school placed her in a special class and on a strict diet.

Because of her condition, she had special nap times and more outdoor activities than the average child.

Blaine's crossed eyes were corrected after she visited her Aunt Nellie Sue and family in Baltimore.

Blaine had several operations at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and had to wear bandages for months.

But at thirteen, she had improved vision and returned to school and more acceptance from peers.

Blaine's drawing skills improved greatly because of the surgery.

Her cousin Ruth bought her her first set of watercolor paints, and Nell was intrigued by its movement on paper.

But during her teenage years, her father was repeatedly ill.

He suffered from cardiac asthma and a series of heart attacks that left him disabled and on oxygen for long periods.

Nell's only escape came with her summer trips to Nellie Sue's house in Baltimore.

She was visiting them when her father died.

Flowers were Blaine's happiest enduring link with her childhood in Richmond, Virginia.

She recalled, "'We lived in a small, plain house that my father built himself in a middle-class neighborhood, and the upper half was rented out so our space was very cramped. In the yard my mother, my father, and I each had a garden. My mother's taste inclined to roses and spring flowers, and I had ordinary things like Zinnias and bluets, but the glory of our yard was my father's dahlias. They bloomed in wonderful, brilliant colors, and the blossoms were as large as dinner plates. I remember the care with which he sorted the bulbs and stored them in the basement over the winter.'"

Blaine studied at the Richmond School of Art (now VCU) with Theresa Pollak.

In 1942, she moved to New York City to study painting under Hans Hofmann.

She was recommended to him by printmaker Worden Day.

Through her yearlong training at the Hans Hofmann School, she adopted a non-painterly style.

By 1943, she joined the American Abstract Artists group as its youngest member.

In these early years with the Jane Street Group, Blaine prescribed to an abstract style, later explaining, "[By 1944], I'm developing so fast in my tastes and I become more abstract all the time--to the point of great purification....", and about fellow Jane Street Group members, "[we] were very dogmatic about our program. Now, as I look back on it, I'm a little ashamed. But we were so excited we really thought that was the gospel, you know. When you're young you are very sure of yourself."

Blaine and many other young artists used the space to display and sell their works, raising funds from collectors and donors in New York and making a name for themselves through shared and solo exhibitions.

At this time, Blaine was working alongside Ida Fischer, Judith Rothschild, and other Abstract Expressionist artists under 25 years of age.

Blaine studied etching and engraving with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 starting in 1945.

Blaine's work had begun as "tightly realist" but transformed to an abstract style, which was inspired by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, and Jean Helion.

Blaine's association with the American Abstract Artists group led to her receiving her first solo exhibition, held at Greenwich Village's Jane Street Gallery, of which she was a founding member.

It was the earliest known artists' cooperative in New York.