Irene E. Parmelee, her surname also spelled Parmely (1847 – 1934), was an American painter and portrait artist.
Early life Irene E. Parmelee born in Guilford, Connecticut. She was the daughter of Mary and Horton L. Parmelee, a farmer. Her older siblings were Emily, Charles, Mary, and Jane.
Education Parmelee studied under Henry Bryant of Hartford beginning in 1872 and the following year with Nathaniel Jocelyn in New Haven. She studied for a year at the Yale Art School, which had just begun admitting women, under Robert Walter Weir. Still stating to others that she was still a student, she opened a studio in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1875.
Parmelee later traveled to Paris and attended the Académie Julian from 1881 to 1884 where she studied with Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, Pierre Auguste Cot, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre.
Career She was a career portrait artist and operated a studio in Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1875 to 1929. Parlee painted the portrait of Marcus Perrin Knowlton, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, made after a photogravure, in 1912. It hung in the court house in Springfield following a formal presentation ceremony at the fourth annual Massachusetts Bar Association meeting in December of that year. She was paid $1,125 () for the framed painting.
Parmelee made a portrait of Samuel Bowles, III, who was an editor of the Republican and a City Library Association member for 37 years and was on the board of directors for 24 years. His wife donated the portrait to the Springfield Library, which was hung next to a portrait of his father, Samuel Bowles, II.
Death She died on August 29, 1934, in Los Angeles, California.
Works A partial list of her paintings are: Amherst College, Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts Chester W. Chapin (b. 1798), oil, copy after Joseph Oriel Eaton George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts Horace Smith, oil, 1881 Horatio N. Case, oil, 1890 Charles M. Merriam, oil, 1890 Henry S. Lee, oil, 1891 James M. Thompson, oil, 1895 Ephraim Bond, oil, 1896 Samuel Bowles, oil, 1896 Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland, oil, 1896 James Kirkham, oil, 1896 Everett Hosmer Barney, oil, 1903 John Olmsted, oil, 1903 Julius Appleton, oil, 1907 Chester Chapin, oil Mrs. Timothy M. Walker, oil Maine State Museum, Augusta Portrait of George Evans, oil, 1901 Massachusetts Historical Society Mrs. Edward Bates (Lucy Douglas Fowler) 1830-1916 Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts Portrait of James Philip Gray, oil Unitarian Church, Boston, Massachusetts John Wille, oil, 1886 Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut Henry Bronson (1804-1893), oil on canvas, 1881
References
Further reading
External links Portrait of Chester W. Chapin by I.E. Parmelee