Lily Irene Jackson

Lily Irene Jackson was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia to Carrie C. Glime Jackson and John Jay Jackson, Jr., an attorney and later a federal judge.[1][2] She had one sibling, her brother Benjamin.[2] Her uncle Jacob B. Jackson was a governor of West Virginia and another uncle, James Monroe Jackson, was a Congressman.[1] According to a letter written in 1868 by U.S. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Jackson (then 20) was "a little deaf".[2] She lived in the family home, 'Carrinda', her entire life.[3]

Jackson studied art in New York, and both her paintings and her sculpture were praised by critics.[4] She is best known as a painter of animals and as an arts organizer.[1]

In 1887, she organized the Parkersburg Art Society and was elected its first president.[1] In 1892, she organized contributions by West Virginia women to the state’s exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.[1] She exhibited two of her own oil paintings at the fair: Watching and Waiting and Anticipation,[5] both with dogs as subjects.[6] Anticipation featured two then-famous St. Bernard[7] dogs: one owned by actor Sarah Bernhardt, and another from New York that had recently sold for the large sum of $6000 (roughly $150,000 in 2015 dollars).[6] Watching and Waiting, which featured a pair of Jackson's own dogs (a pointer and a setter) hung in the Board Room of the Women's Building at the fair.[8]

In 1917, Jackson published a chapbook of poetry, From One Who Loves You.[9]

Jackson died in Parkersburg in 1928 of diabetic coma.[3]

Jackson's work is held by the Blennerhassett Museum of Regional History, the West Virginia State Museum, and other institutions.[1] She was the subject of a 2004 exhibition at the Parkersburg Art Center.[9]

Media related to Lily Irene Jackson at Wikimedia Commons