Elizabeth O'Neill Verner South Carolina (1883-1979) ST. ANDREWS PARRISH etching, framed signed, numbered & titled: lower margin in pencil, 50/82 image size: H8 1/2" W6 1/2" *Artist biography: Born in 1883, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner has come to be recognized, through her pastel paintings and etchings, as a symbol of Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry. She enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was twenty and studied there for two years before returning to Charleston. The death of her husband in 1925 forced Verner to depend on her art as a means of support for herself and her family but by that time she was already an accomplished artist. The pastels that Verner painted of the flower vendors in Charleston show, without being condescending or caricatures, the grace and dignity of these women. In fact, she once had to take action to prevent the City of Charleston, which considered them at the time to be a traffic nuisance and most probably an embarrassment to the burgeoning tourist trade, from evicting them from the sidewalks of the old city. Verner's etchings capture the streets and denizens of Charleston at a time when, in the words of an old Charlestonian, "we were too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash." Verner was a founding member of the Charleston Etcher's Club. She was also a member of the Southern States Art League, the Carolina Art Association, the New Orleans Art Association, the Washington Watercolor Club, and the Chicago Society of Etchers. She was a preservationist and also the author of several books including "Other Places and Prints and Impressions of Charleston." Verner traveled all over the world lecturing on art and architecture, and studied in London and Japan. Her heart was always in Charleston, however. In her book Other Places she states, "...but for me, my own narrow streets with pointed shadows making patterns on the buildings opposite, are more to my liking. Yes - by far the best thing about traveling is coming home." Elizabeth O'Neill Verner died in 1979.