MARY DRAKE COLES American, 1903-1998 Landscape with Cactus, 1934 Watercolor Landscape depicting a valley view framed by distant mountain ranges and dotted with sparse vegetation. A prominent cactus rendered in deep blue tones anchors the lower right foreground, while a wooden fence line leads the eye through rolling, sunlit terrain toward the hazy peaks beyond. Signed. Framed. Not examined out of frame. Sight (as matted): 12 x 18.5 inches; frame: 18.5 x 24.5 inches $100-120
ARTIST PROFILE: Mary Drake Coles (1903–1998) was an American artist who spent childhood summers on Martha's Vineyard and developed her craft through both formal and informal training: Studying at Smith College and later in Paris, Majorca, Haiti, and New York, where she absorbed influences from the Parisian modernists and knew Vineyard abstract artist Vaclav Vytlacil. In 1957, after glaucoma finally claimed her sight, she moved from New York City to Edgartown, a place she had known since childhood, and remarkably continued her artistic career as a "memory painter," recreating scenes she recalled from before her blindness became complete. Working in oil, watercolor, and mixed media, Coles became especially known for her paintings of Martha's Vineyard and her extraordinary late career, navigating with a guide dog while continuing to paint from memory, drew national attention as a singular story of artistic perseverance.
