Untitled by Hazel Abbot, Watercolor on Paper
Artist Biography
Hazel Abbot, born on October 31, 1894, lived until 1903 at a Hudson Bay Company post called Moose Factory, Ontario, and later at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where her father was an Anglican bishop. In 1917 she immigrated to the United States to take a four-year course at the Child-Walker School of Fine Arts in Boston. She also attended the Charles Woodbury Summer School of Painting in Ogunquit, ME.
In 1923, the artist, recently married to Charles Abbot, suffered a breakdown, and despite several moves including five years in Colorado Springs, it wasn’t until 1933 when she regained her health and the desire to paint. Captivated by the scenic beauty around her, she began to paint Colorado landscapes. Soon she broadened her area of view to surrounding states of New Mexico, Wyoming, California, Oregon, and Vancouver Island, BC.
Exhibitions of her work came in the 1930s, with a show at Wellesley College, MA where she included pictures entitled Raton Pass, Cheyenne Canon, and Rampart Range, Colorado. In 1940 she had her first one-person show, held at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Group exhibitions included the Royal Institute Galleries and Royal Society of British Artists, London; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; and Society des Artistes Francaise, Paris.
The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, which held a retrospective show of Abbot’s work in 1986, owns several of her watercolors.
Hazel died on April 23, 1984.
