Bertha Hewitt Woolrych

Bertha Hewitt Woolrych was a painter and illustrator who was active in St. Louis from the 1880s to the 1930s. She was born in Conneaut, Ohio, in 1868, but at an early age moved with her family to Alton, Illinois, just north of St. Louis, where she attended school at the Ursuline Convent. Woolrych received formal art training at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and quickly became active in the art community, first exhibiting with the St. Louis Exhibition and Music Hall Association in 1885.

In 1886, Woolrych traveled with her mother to France to continue her art studies. She attended the Académie Colarossi, one of the first co-educational art academies in Paris, and studied under Aime Morot, Gustave Courtois and Raphael Collin. Her painting Les Soeurs was included in the Paris Salon on the Champs-Elysées in 1888. Woolrych’s years in France were also personally significant: In 1887 she married fellow artist and St. Louisan F. Humphry Woolrych in Paris.

Woolrych’s reputation increased upon her return to the United States. In 1905, she won a bronze medal at the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon; and in 1908, she was awarded silver and gold medals at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts exhibition and a silver medal at the St. Louis District General Federation of Women's Clubs exhibition.

Woolrych frequently painted portraits, particularly miniatures on ivory, paintings on china, and still lifes, which were characterized by their detailed meticulousness and life-like quality, including her work titled Still Life. She also worked in other media, including oils and pastel.

Woolrych was active in a number of organizations, including the St. Louis Art Students Association, St. Louis Society of Miniaturists, Woman's Art League, and the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, serving as its treasurer from 1905-1909. She was the first woman member of the St. Louis Stamp Collectors' Society; she had amassed a stamp collection from her studies in France, where she began trading American stamps with her fellow students. Woolrych died of cancer in St. Louis in 1937.