Beacon Artist: Ella Ferris Pell

"She is buried in a pauper's grave at Fishkill Rural Cemetery in New York." ... so reads most of the brief biographical summaries you will find online of the life of artist Ella Ferris Pell. How did such an accomplished painter, sculptor, and illustrator--one of the most written about American female artists of the late nineteenth century--come to such an inglorious end?

Ella Pell (1846-1922) spent most of her last years as a resident of Beacon, seemingly well off, living in her own home on South Avenue, and doing paintings of local scenes. Upon her death in 1922, Pell was found alone in her rented rooms in a house on Ferry Street. Hard times had inexplicably fallen upon her. She was buried in an unmarked grave beside her sister in Fishkill Rural Cemetery. Mystery abounds on why her life slipped away from one of wealth, prestige and noted artistic accomplishment.

Pell had graduated from the Design School for Women of Cooper Union in New York in 1870. She also studied art in Paris, and her painting "Salome" (1890) drew attention here in America and abroad. She also did the illustrations for the book "Through the Invisible" by Paul Tynan in 1897, a work still selling today. Many of her paintings are located in the Museum of Fort Ticonderoga, and in private collections. If you ever come across a painting for sale signed "E. F. Pell," grab it--it is by a local master