Mary Hallett Gronemeyer

Mary Hallett Gronemeyer was a painter and craftsperson who lived and worked in St. Louis for most of her career. Originally from Corydon, Indiana, she was the daughter of Edwin S. Hallett, a mechanical engineer, and Emma K. Hallett. Her family moved to St. Louis in 1908 and Gronemeyer attended Soldan High School. By the time she entered high school, Gronemeyer had taken an interest in art and became a member of the Sketch Club.

Gronemeyer initially studied painting at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University for three and a half years, and later moved to New York City and continued her studies at Columbia University and the Pratt Institute, where she met her future husband and partner, Philip Gronemeyer. The two formed a lifelong creative partnership, frequently exhibiting jointly but maintaining independence in their work. The Gronemeyers returned to the St. Louis region in the 1920s and established a joint studio in the Sugar Creek Valley in Kirkwood, Missouri. Mary Gronemeyer found work as a fashion illustrator and advertising artist for local St. Louis businesses.

A regionalist painter, Mary Gronemeyer became known for her watercolor paintings and pen and ink drawings, often depicting still life and Missouri landscapes. While her husband was drawn more to the picturesque beauty of Missouri hills and countryside, Gronemeyer was noted for her depictions of urban St. Louis, with one article applauding her “eye for the fascinating outlines of St. Louis roofs, and a vision of the city’s streets which is essentially realistic, yet homey and not sordid” (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 20, 1942). She was involved in the St. Louis Society of Independent Artists, St. Louis Women Artists, and the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, among others, and was a founding member of the St. Louis County Art Association. 

Gronemeyer remained active through the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953-1955, she illustrated and hand-lettered a book originally written in 1870 by J. L. Martin, The Voice of the Seven Thunders or Lectures on the Apocalypse, which narrates the biblical book of Revelation. Her work can be found today in the permanent collection of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association.

She died in St. Louis on October 20, 1985.