The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, held in Jackson Park, was a large water pool representing the voyage that Columbus took to the New World. Chicago won the right to host the fair over several competing cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago's image.
Laura Muntz Lyall was a Canadian Impressionist painter, known for her sympathetic portrayal of women and children.
The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, commonly referred to as the "Midwinter Exposition" or the "Midwinter Fair", was a World's Fair that officially operated from January 27 to July 5 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
Elizabeth Nourse was a realist-style genre, portrait, and landscape painter born in Mt. Healthy, Ohio, in the Cincinnati area. She also worked in decorative painting and sculpture. Described by her contemporaries as "the first woman painter of America" and "the dean of American woman painters in France and one of the most eminent contemporary artists of her sex," Nourse was the first American woman to be voted into the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She also had the honor of having one of her paintings purchased by the French government and included in the Luxembourg Museum's permanent collection. Nourse's style was described by Los Angeles critic Henry J. Seldis as a "forerunner of social realist painting." Some of Nourse's works are displayed at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low (1858–1946), born in New Haven, Connecticut was an American painter who specialized in landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits.
Charles Yardley "C. Y." Turner was an American painter, illustrator, muralist and teacher. His genre scenes and American historical paintings were popularized through engravings and book illustrations.
Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (1850–1930) was an American artist, educator and philanthropist who is known for her paintings of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Well-educated and accomplished, she was one of the "New Women" of the 19th century who explored opportunities not traditionally available to women. She was the first person in the United States to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree and was the first woman admitted to the Hague Academy of Fine Arts. She opened a school in Nantucket that had been only open to men and offered several types of trade and crafts work courses to both genders.
Alice Brown Chittenden was an American painter based in San Francisco, California who specialized in flowers, portraits, and landscapes. Her life's work was a collection of botanicals depicting California wildflowers, for which she is renowned and received gold and silver medals at expositions. She taught at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art from 1897 to 1941.
Mary Lightbody Gow was a British watercolourist.
Lydia Amanda Brewster Sewell was a 19th-century American painter of portraits and genre scenes. Lydia Amanda Brewster studied art in the United States and in Paris before marrying her husband, fellow artist Robert Van Vorst Sewell. She won a bronze medal for her mural Arcadia at The World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. She continued to win medals at expositions and was the first woman to win a major prize at the National Academy of Design, where she was made an Associate Academian in 1903. She was vice president of the Woman's Art Club of New York by 1906. Her works are in several public collections.
Enella Benedict was an American realism and landscape painter. She taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a founder and director for nearly 50 years for the Art School at the Hull House.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson was an American-born artist who was recognized as one of the leading American women artists in Paris during the 1880s, and whose artwork was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.
Annie Shepley Omori was an American artist, activist, and translator. For the first fifty years of her life, she produced work under her maiden name, Annie Barrows Shepley. She studied art in New York under Harry Siddons Mowbray and in Paris at Académie Julian under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Lucien Simon. After that, she established studios in New York and Connecticut, where she worked as a portrait painter and children's book illustrator. She married Hyozo Omori, a Japanese exchange student, in 1907 and moved with him to Japan, where they established the Yurin En settlement house to provide educational and recreational opportunities to the poor in Tokyo. They were leaders in the Japanese playground movement. Hyozo Omori died in 1913, and Shepley continued running the center. She also translated Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan with Kochi Doi in 1920.
Charlotte Buell Coman was an American painter.
Lily Irene Jackson, was an American artist and arts organizer active in West Virginia who specialized in paintings of animals.
The Woman's Building was designed and built in June 1892, for the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893; under the auspices of the Board of Lady Managers. Out of the twelve main buildings for the Exhibition, the Woman's Building was the first to be completed. It had an exhibition space as well as an assembly room, a library, and a Hall of Honor. The History of the World's Fair states, "It will be a long time before such an aggregation of woman's work, as may now be seen in the Woman's Building, can be gathered from all parts of the world again." The purpose of the building was to highlight woman's achievements, and challenge the traditional ways of thinking at the time it was built. The Woman's Building was planned, designed, and decorated entirely by women under the direction of the board of lady managers.
Cornelia Stuart Cassady Davis (1870–1920) was an American painter known for her portraits of Native Americans of the American west.
Lydia Purdy Hess was an American artist best known for her Portrait of Miss E. H., which was exhibited at the Paris Salon de la Societé Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
The Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was the country's contribution to what was commonly called the St. Louis World's Fair, held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, in 1904. The exhibition included a showcase of Canadian natural resources and fine art.
Leiv Eirikson Discovering America is a painting by Christian Krohg. It depicts the explorer Leif Erikson at the moment he discovers American land, as described in the sagas of Icelanders. The painting was made for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and was exhibited along with the Viking ship replica Viking. It is in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. A copy of the painting, created by Krohg's son, Per Krohg, has hung in the United States Capitol since 1936.
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