oil on canvas, signed at lower right, presented in a contemporary frame with linen liner.
SS 12.5 x 17.5 in.; DOA 17.75 x 22.75 in.
Born in Evanston, IL, Blakeslee began her art studies at the age of 13 at the Chicago Art Institute. Her family moved to Washington, D.C., where she enrolled at the Corcoran School of Art and Miss Catherine Critcher's School of Art. She took classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts during the first-half of the 1930s and was awarded the Academy's prestigious Cresson Scholarship twice. During her studies at the Academy, she met and married her instructor, painter Francis Speight. In 1961, her husband accepted the artist-in-residence position at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.
Blakeslee's artwork has been exhibited by the Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery; National Academy of Design; North Carolina Museum; Pennsylvania Academy; and the 1939 Worlds Fair in San Francisco, California. Her work is held in numerous permanent collections including the Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC; National Academy of Design, New York, NY; and The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC.
We wish to thank Barbour Strickland for his assistance in cataloguing this painting.
The Collection of Patricia Deerwester, Southern Pines, NC
Additional high-resolution photos are available at LelandLittle.com

Very good estate condition.