Josephine Marien Crawford

Place: New Orleans

Born: 1878

Death: 1952

Biography:

Josephine Marien Crawford was an American painter, born into an old, aristocratic family in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is known for introducing modernism to New Orleans along with Paul Ninas and Will Henry Stevens. Crawford was born into a large Creole family and grew up speaking both French and English. She spent time in North Carolina and Biloxi, Mississippi as a child, which informed her sensibilities. Her earliest known drawings date to 1896. Crawford studied at the Cenas Institute for Young Ladies and McDonogh High School No. 3, and was briefly enrolled at Newcomb College. She did not begin formal study of art until later in life, when she enrolled in classes at the school of the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans in the 1920s. Crawford traveled widely throughout her life, visiting much of Europe, Central America, and Mexico. She is known to have visited Biloxi throughout her life and carried a sketchbook as early as 1888. Crawford's work was inspired by Cubism and the flattened forms and minimalist approach of modernism.