ANNA HEYWARD TAYLOR (1879-1956)

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Taylor graduated from the South Carolina College for Women, Columbia in 1897. In 1903-04, she studied with William Merritt Chase in Europe. She later studied with B. J. O. Nordfelt in Provincetown, Massachusetts, during the summers of 1915 and 1916. She traveled extensively over the next decade, living in New York, British Guiana, and Mexico before moving permanently to Charleston 1929. Along with Alfred Hutty, Alice Smith, and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, Taylor was a driving force behind the cultural and artistic reawakening in Charleston.

Additional info: Taylor was the descendant of a wealthy cotton planting family from Columbia; her grandfather Benjamin Franklin Taylor had owned one of the largest cotton plantations in the state. Thus she may have been more than usually sensitive to the working conditions in the textile industry. Taylor's works, like those of her peers, did much to promote Charleston's allure and are today found in prestigious private collections and premier public institutions. Steeped in the history and aura of the Low country, these paintings and etchings instilled pride in local residents and brought national attention to the city they honored. (Martha Severens)