A member of the Byrdcliffe Arts & Crafts colony, founded 1902 at Woodstock, NY, Zulma Steele-Parker designed furniture, books and her own line of pottery called "Zedware." She was among the first artists to live at the Byrdcliffe Colony, moving there in 1903, and with Edna Walker, she designed 'mission oak' furniture "on which she painted landscape and leaf designs, c. 1902-09." (Falk, 3153) Steele had close ties to Woodstock, because her ancestors were the Livingstons who founded the village and "were the first legal owners of the area." (Green, 176) In Impressionist style, she, who was born in Wisconsin, showed much interest and affection for the landscape of her adopted state of New York. She painted scenes of the Catskill Mountains. In 1926, she married Neilson Parker, a farmer, and after his death two years later, she spent much time in Europe. Zulma Steele took art training at the Art Institute of Chicago, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, the Art Students League summer school at Woodstock, and in Paris in the 1920s with André Lhote. Steele was close friends with Birge Harrison and his wife, and enrolled in his classes when he became Director of the Students League in Woodstock. "Steele devoted much of her prodigious energy to painting. Her landscapes were reminiscent of Harrison's; airy and impressionistic in feeling, but they remained distinct in their bright coloration and personal context." (Green, 176) And like her teacher, Arthur Dow, she refrained from placing figures in her landscapes. [http://www.askart.com/artist/Zulma_Parker_Steele/10051526/Zulma_Parker_Steele.aspx] undefined

More on Google