A Nebraskan for only the first year of her life, Opal Anderson became a painter and sculptor. She was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, although her birth date is not known, and lived most of her life in Des Moines, Iowa. She married William C. Anderson and they lived at 113 Locust Street, Des Moines. He was the manager of a printing office and, by 1940, they had a son, Allen.
Opal studied at the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines on a scholarship that she received from the Des Moines Women’s Club. She exhibited with that organization in 1938 as well as with the Iowa Art Salon in 1935. From 1935 to 1937, she was a Public Works Administration (WPA) artist, contributing both paintings and sculpture.
Opal Anderson is not represented in the Museum of Nebraska Art collection.
Sources:
Ancestry.com, Mar. 2014
Falk, Peter Hastings, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art, Volume I, Print
Ness, Zenobia B. and Louise Orwig, Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years, p. 16, Print
Researched, written, and copyrighted by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier
Museum of Nebraska Art Project:
Their Place, Their Time: Women Artists in Nebraska, 1825-1945
