Jessie Bryan Trefethen 1882-1978
Noted as a designer and teacher of art, Jessie Trefethen was born June 13, 1882 on Peaks Island, Portland, Maine, the daughter of William Henry and Elizabeth (Mank) Trefethen. She received her early education locally, graduating from the Portland (Maine) High School then attending Holyoke College where she earned a BA in history in 1907. After a year of study at the Portland School of Art, she spent three years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where she was awarded the Cresson Scholarship to support her study trips to Europe. Her instructors there included Daniel Garber and Emil Carlsen. She continued as a student of landscape painting under Herbert Teague, in Florence, Italy, and Alfred Schroff of Boston. The years between 1909 and 1911 she spent painting in France, England and Italy.
Miss Trefethen served as secretary of the Portland School of Fine Arts in 1911 and 1912. She then assisted in the Fine Arts Department of the Boston Public Library and in the Art Museum at Wellesley College. Later she taught at Lake Erie College and at Drew Seminary (art and English subjects) in Carmel, New York.
Miss Trefethen was Head of the Art Department at the Merrill School, Mamoroneck, New York from 1917 to 1921 and held a similar position a the Knox School in Cooperstown, New York from 1922 to 1926. That same year she accepted the position of Assistant Professor at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Promoted to Associate Professor in 1945, she retired in 1947, after which she became a professor emeritus, and returned to Portland, Maine. While at Oberlin she taught figure and portrait drawing, line, color, and composition. She also taught oil and watercolor painting in addition to the history of modern art.
Outside Oberlin she was best known for her watercolors of the Maine coast, although she did work in Mexico, Nova Scotia, the coast of England and at scenic areas in Lorain County, Ohio. One critic, writing about her exhibit at the Allen Art Museum in the spring of 1945 stated; “Miss Trefethen feels that no countryside could offer more inspiring subjects the Ohio area described in colorful October and November. “
“Miss Trefethen’s water colors have been described as ‘strong in color and execution. Her slightly abstracted treatment of space and form reminds one of Cezanne. She is very conscious of design, and yet she does not lose the reality of the subject. In her own works, ‘Art is selection’ and she has achieved this ideal”
The artist continued exhibiting even after her retirement, holding exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 1949, Oberlin College in 1949, Bowdoin College in 1950 and Farnsworth Museum also in 1950.
The artist was a member of the Arts and Crafts Society of Portland, Maine. Much of her work was held by the family as she rarely sold her work, thus keeping her from becoming well known, although some is held in the collections of the Allen Art Museum at Oberlin College.
She died in Portland, Maine on March 9, 1978.
Jessie Bryan Trefethen
Courtesy of The Tides Institute and Museum of Art, Eastport, Maine
Biographical information: Leonard, John William. “Who’s Who In America, A Biographical Dictionary…” American Commonwealth Company, 1914. Information also excerpted from a biography on the artist from the Oberlin College archives.
Edward P. Bentley is an accomplished photographer who enjoys researching early American artists