Jane Peterson
1876–1965 · American Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painter
Jane Peterson (Elgin, Illinois, 1876 – 1965) was an American painter whose work blends Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist influences. Born Jennie Christine, she changed her name to Jane shortly after finishing high school in 1894. After training at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League of New York, she travelled through Europe from 1907 onward, studying with teachers such as Joaquín Sorolla in Madrid and Frank Brangwyn in Venice and London.
Back in the United States, her friendship with Sorolla and her patron Louis Comfort Tiffany encouraged bolder colour and looser brushwork. She also worked alongside the painter Maurice Prendergast and took up watercolour with growing commitment, teaching it at the Art Students League. During the First World War she painted patriotic scenes and military portraits. She held more than 80 solo exhibitions, and her works are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Norton Museum of Art, among other institutions. She is remembered today largely through the renewed attention to her career in recent exhibitions.