Artist Profile
Constance Cochrane
- Lived:
- 1888-1952
- Worked:
- Philadelphia, PA , Monhegan Island, ME
- Style:
- Coastal View, Still Life, Landscape, Portrait
"Born in the U.S. Navy Yard at Pensacola, Florida, where both her father and grandfather were stationed, Constance Cochrane joined a family of career Marine Corps and Navy officers. Constance Cochrane devoted her artistic career to painting images of the sea and landscapes showing the nearby shore - its rocks." For a brief time, she joined the Navy during both the first and second World Wars to design camouflage for ships.
Constance Cochrane began to paint when she was about six and demonstrated considerable artistic inclination during her high school years. Upon graduation from Chester High School, she enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women where she was an illustration major. Her most influential teacher was painter Elliot Dangerfield. According to Elizabeth Cochrane, Dangerfield "broadened [Constance's] field and ambition to include color, and ultimately to paint the sea." Cochrane also studied with Dangerfield at his summer studio in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, as did other future members of the Philadelphia Ten, such as Lucille Howard and Isabel Bransen Cartwright."
Between 1921 and 1927 Cochrane actively lectured for PSDW and was the art chair for the Delaware County Federation. In that role she developed an exhibition of women artist works that was so popular that it helped to initiate The Philadelphia Ten circulation of exhibits in the Pennsylvania State Federation. Her contribution to the arts extended to chair the Circulating Picture Club of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, sit on the executive committee of PSDW and sit on the jury selection in 1935 with Harry Snell, Paul Gill, Arrah Lee Gaul and Isabel Branson Cartwright.
As a painter Cochrane was comfortable in both oil and watercolor. Her work extended from the thumbnail sketch to large murals. Much of her painting was done on Monhegan Island, Maine. Beginning in 1921 she visited the area and in 1930 made it her summer home. Although her work was produced in the Caribbean Islands, Cape Cod, New England and Philadelphia, her heart was in Monhegan Island.
Condensed from, The Philadelphia Ten, A Women's Artist Group 1917-1945. By Page Talbott and Patricia Tanis Sydney.