Myra Albert Wiggins
1869–1956 · American painter and photographer of the Photo-Secession
Myra Albert Wiggins (Salem, Oregon, 1869-Seattle, 1956) was an American painter and photographer associated with the Photo-Secession movement of the early twentieth century. Her career, which combined both disciplines, helps show the role of women artists on the American West Coast.
She showed artistic talent from an early age and won many prizes at state fairs. She studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1891 to 1894, under William Merritt Chase and John Twachtman. In 1903 Alfred Stieglitz admitted her to the Photo-Secession, and her photographs were shown in Hamburg, London and The Hague. After the family moved to Toppenish, Washington, in 1907, dust affected her health, and painting did not bring her a steady income for several years.
From 1932 she lived in Seattle, where in 1930 she had co-founded the Women Painters of Washington. Retrospective exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum and the de Young Museum in San Francisco recognized her painting. Her work is held in collections including the Portland Art Museum and the Getty Museum.