Artists

Mabel Spencer Peterson

American, 1886-1953

Born in Dunlap, Elkhart County, Indiana as the eldest daughter of Lydia A. Decker (1860 – 1943) and Delbert L. Spencer (1861 – 1944). Her parents were married in White Pigeon, Michigan on the 1st of May 1885. By 1900 the family had moved to Brooklyn, Kings County, New York where her father worked as a railroad agent and where the family resided on Monroe Street.  

Peterson attended Pratt Institute, also located in Brooklyn, where she was a student of Otto Beck (1864 – 1954), Anna Fisher (1873 – 1942), and George Froehlich. On her own business card she described herself as “Instructor of Oil and Water Color Painting,” and may have taught classes at Sewanhaka High School, located in Floral Park, Nassau County, New York (based on known labels, the school at one time owned a number of works done by Peterson). She was married to a Swedish immigrant named David Siegfried Peterson (1888-1946/50), who acted regularly as her agent. The family, which included a daughter Beulah and son Hollis, resided at 69 Elizabeth Street in Floral Park.  

Her first known exhibition was with the Art League of Nassau County in 1937. The following year she had her first solo at the League’s gallery, located at 243 Fulton Avenue in Hempstead, Nassau County, Long Island. The exhibit included landscape, portrait studies, and still life paintings, both in oil and watercolor. Reviews of the exhibit noted Peterson’s ability to handle the two mediums “…with unusual freedom and brilliancy of color.” At the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors 50th Anniversary exhibition held in 1939, one of her watercolors was held out for praise by the  Brooklyn Daily Eagle: “There is…a particularly fine [watercolor], ‘Old Folks at Home,’ by Mabel Peterson.”    
In 1939 she exhibited the work “The Lay-off” at the Allied Artists of America exhibition. Though many of her works were usually pure landscape, Peterson had a strong interest in Social Realism, and “The Lay-off” was just one of many works that depicted the realities of the Great Depression and the inequalities present in many parts of American society.    

In 1940 she participated in the exhibition held at the American Art Today Building at the New York World’s Fair where she showed the work “Chain Gang” (AKA Song of the Chain Gang),  which received a good deal of attention from the press. The New York Herald Tribune remarked “A contrasting piece, unusual for a woman, is Mabel S. Peterson’s ‘Song of the Chain Gang.’ This artist goes to the deep South to portray Negroes in chains and stripes under the watchful eye of a deputy sheriff. Pulling out all of the stops she whacks out her impression with extreme gusto.” The New York World-Telegram’s respected art critic Emily Genauer noted the work was “particularly commendable for the artist’s sure handling of bold, resonant hues.” At the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors 1942 exhibition at Argent Galleries in New York City she exhibited another Social Realist work, “Noon Hour, WPA.” The Eagle again praised the artist’s abilities, noting “Mabel Peterson’s “Noon Hour, WPA” reveals the innate camaraderie among excavation workers.”  

At some point in the late 1930s or in 1940 itself she began traveling out to the North Fork of Long Island, New York to paint. Identified scenes of the area include the Swamp at Mattituck (dated 1940) and the Orient Point Lighthouse (u.d.). Other known scenes depict places elsewhere on Long Island, such as the Rockaway Inlet along Long Island’s south shore. Still others depict locales such as Tom’s River, New Jersey, where the family often summered.  

During her lifetime she was apparently well known in regional art circles, with one New York newspaper remarking “She has exhibited extensively and in many of the better known galleries in New York, including the Waldorf Astoria and the Anderson Galleries, and with the Brooklyn Society of Painters and Sculptors.” She painted still-lifes, landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and even at least one standing screen (depicting Leda and the Swan).  

She was residing in Hempstead, Nassau County, New York at the time of her death on the 21st of April 1953 at the age of 66. She was cremated and therefore there is no burial location.  

Though there are undoubtedly other exhibitions in which Peterson participated, those presently known include the following: The Art League of Nassau County, Nassau Institute of Art, Hempstead, L.I., 1937; The Art League of Nassau County, Garden City Hotel, Garden City, L.I., 1938 (solo); Nassau County Artists Exhibit, Freeport, L.I., 1937; 1938 (solo); Allied Artists of America, New York, NY, 1939; Studio Guild, Third National Revolving Exhibition Celebrating the New York World's Fair, New York, NY, 1939; National Association of Women Painters & Sculptors, 50th Anniversary Exhibition, New York, NY, 1939; New York Water Color Club and the American Water Color Society, New York, NY, 1940; American Art Today Building at New York World’s Fair, New York, NY, 1940; National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Argent Galleries, New York, NY, 1942; Anderson Galleries; New York, NY, (u.d.); Brooklyn Society of Painters and Sculptors, Brooklyn, NY, (u.d.); Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York, NY, (u.d.).   

Peterson was an active member of the American Artists Professional League, the Art League of Nassau County, the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, and the New York Water Color Club.  

Her works are known to be in the following public institutions at present: Southold Historical Society, Southold, Suffolk County, NY. The largest number of her works reside in private collections throughout the United States and overseas.