American, 1918 - 2002
Poor began her artistic studies in 1935 in New York at the Art Students League, where her teachers were Alexander Brook, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and William Zorach. She attended Bennington College in Vermont from 1936 to 1938 and continued her studies under the auspices of Bennington in Paris at the Acad‚mie Julian and the Ecole Fernand Léger. She also studied in Paris with Jean Lurcat and Abraham Rattner.
Poor became expert in painting in the true fresco technique by assisting her step-father, Henry Varnum Poor, in the execution of murals for the United States Departments of Justice and of Interior, Washington, D. C., in the last years of the 1930s, and at Pennsylvania State University, 1940. On independent commissions from the Public Works Administration, she then executed murals for post offices in Gleason, Tennessee, and Depew, New York, 1941, and continued to do mural work through the 1950s. Her paintings began to be included regularly in exhibitions around the country in 1942, however, in 1943 she joined the Women's Army Corps, and served as an artist-correspondent in the Army Air Corps. Poor's first solo exhibition at New York's Graham Gallery, occurred in 1957; the Gallery continues to represent her to the present time.
She was an instructor and one of four directors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine from 1947 to 1961, has served on the School's Board of Governors and Board of Trustees, and in 1978 returned to the school to teach a special course in frescoe painting. She was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1987. Among her awards are the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Fellowship for Mural Painting, 1948; and from the Academy, Altman prizes in the annual exhibitions of 1971, 1981, and 1987.
Poor lives in the home built by her step-father in New City, New York.
Poor became expert in painting in the true fresco technique by assisting her step-father, Henry Varnum Poor, in the execution of murals for the United States Departments of Justice and of Interior, Washington, D. C., in the last years of the 1930s, and at Pennsylvania State University, 1940. On independent commissions from the Public Works Administration, she then executed murals for post offices in Gleason, Tennessee, and Depew, New York, 1941, and continued to do mural work through the 1950s. Her paintings began to be included regularly in exhibitions around the country in 1942, however, in 1943 she joined the Women's Army Corps, and served as an artist-correspondent in the Army Air Corps. Poor's first solo exhibition at New York's Graham Gallery, occurred in 1957; the Gallery continues to represent her to the present time.
She was an instructor and one of four directors of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine from 1947 to 1961, has served on the School's Board of Governors and Board of Trustees, and in 1978 returned to the school to teach a special course in frescoe painting. She was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1987. Among her awards are the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Fellowship for Mural Painting, 1948; and from the Academy, Altman prizes in the annual exhibitions of 1971, 1981, and 1987.
Poor lives in the home built by her step-father in New City, New York.
