Newport Art Museum

The Newport Art Museum will conserve an oil portrait of its founder, Maud Howe Elliott, painted in 1937 by Mabel Norman Cerio. Ms. Elliott was an early arts advocate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (shared with her sister for the biography of their mother, Julia Ward Howe), suffragist, and humanitarian. The artist was also community minded, endowing a lecture series at what is now the Newport Art Museum and bequeathing a bird sanctuary to the region. In connection with the museum's centennial in 2012, the staff is striving to bring attention to both women, beginning with an exhibition in the summer of 2011, entitled "Remembering the Ladies: Women and the Art Association of Newport." The portrait will be integral to the exhibition and will serve as a catalyst for raising additional funds for conservation treatments for other works in the collection.