Cornelia Field Maury

Cornelia Field Maury was born on November 10, 1866, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and there they owned a theater. Maury began her studies in art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University and then studied for two years at the Académie Julian in Paris with Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Luc-Olivier Merson, Raphael Collin, Benjamin Constant, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Jules Dupre. There she received an honorable mention in drawing.

Maury was a specialist in depicting children in her work. She worked in pastel, oils and, later in her career, etchings. Her studio was at her home in the Carondelet area of St. Louis and her main subjects were children who lived in the area. In 1905 one of her paintings of children, The Little Mother, won second prize in a competition for St. Louis Artists' Guild members sponsored by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Maury exhibited frequently with other female artists in St. Louis, such as Martha Hoke, Emilie Gross, Florence Hazeltine, Agnes Lodwick, Lillian Thoele, Florence Ver Steeg, Eloise Long Wells and Helen Rathburn. She also frequently exhibited her work with artist organizations, such as the Society of Western Artists, the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, St. Louis Association of Painters and Sculptors, Southern States Art League, Eight Women Artists, St. Louis Society of Miniaturists and the St. Louis Art League. Maury was elected to the Chicago Society of Etchers in 1936.

Cornelia Field Maury died on November 11, 1942, in St. Louis. The 1942 annual exhibition of the St. Louis Independent Artists was dedicated to her memory.