Fannie Hillsmith

Fannie Hillsmith (1911 – July 27, 2007) was an American cubist painter from Boston who during a long career, mostly based in New York City, developed a style of Cubism which combined traditional Cubist motifs with what she called "an early American feeling." Personal life Fannie Hillsmith was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1911. Her grandfather, Frank Hill Smith, was a painter, as well as one of the founders of the Boston Museum School. Hillsmith began sketching at an early age. She enrolled in the Boston Museum School in 1930, and graduated four years later. Hillsmith married Gordon Welchman in 1958. Welchman was an American-English mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park and worked on code-breaking alongside Alan Turing. The couple met while Hillsmith was on a one-year scholarship from the Boston Museum of Art to study in Europe. The couple divorced in 1970. Career Hillsmith moved from Boston to New York City in 1934. Once in New York, she took an interest in avant-garde art through her studies and gradually developed an abstract style. Hillsmith studied under such teachers as William Zorach and Yasuo Kuniyoshi for one year while at the Art Students League. She went on to study at New York University at the A. E. Gallatin Collection.