1887, Macon Nebraska ‒ 1969, Canon City, Colorado

(Ethel Irene Blandin)

Born in Franklin County, Nebraska, Ethel Haworth would go on to become a landscape, western scene, and portrait artist as well as an art gallery owner. Leaving Nebraska at age 13 with her parents Joseph and Miranda (Nettleton) Blandin, the family moved to Eaton, Colorado, and it appears that, from that time, she had more interest in Colorado than Nebraska. Her post-high school education included Colorado Teachers College (now University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley from 1905 to 1907, and then the next two years at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1920 in Rawlins, Wyoming, she married Lemuel White Haworth (1887-1976), a divorced World War I veteran. The newlyweds first lived in Oregon where Lemuel, called Lee, took a job as an “axeman in road construction.” Although they were married 49 years until her death, it appears that, even though she referred to herself as Mrs. Lee Haworth, she retained her maiden name of Blandin as the signature on her paintings.

From 1947 to 1960, the Haworths lived in Sedona, Arizona, and she became a prolific and respected painter of Southwest scenes. In the early 1950s at El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon, she had a one-year solo exhibition. Her painting Ridin’ High, depicting the Grand Canyon, was selected by the Phoenix Greek delegation to be their gift to the King and Queen of Greece when they visited Arizona.

Descriptive of Ethel’s activity in Sedona is the following description in the Arizona Daily Sun: “Mrs. Lee Haworth shipped a picture Tuesday to a Chicago purchaser. The picture was of Courthouse Rock and what is called the ‘million dollar view’ taken from the west side. The picture, which sold for $500, was four feet wide and three feet high.” (Newspapers.com)

In 1960, Blandin and her husband moved to Canon City, Colorado where she died nine years later on October 19, 1969.

Her work is in the collection of the Arizona Committee of Women in the Arts in Sedona. Her memberships included the Oregon Society of Artists and American Artists Professional League. She had solo exhibitions in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington.

Ethel Blandin is not represented in the Museum of Nebraska Art collection.

Sources:
Ancestry.com, Blandin family records, Mar. 2014
Arizona Daily Sun, newspaper: 5/3/1956
Kovinick, Phil and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, p. 22, Print

Researched, written, and copyrighted by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier
Museum of Nebraska Art Project:
Their Place, Their Time: Women Artists in Nebraska, 1825-1945