Part of the American History & Genealogy Project

Emma Scholfield Wright 1854 ~

Mrs. Emma Scholfield Wright, of Pueblo, Colorado, was born in Hunslet, near Leeds, England, in 1845, and came to America when very young. She was married in 1878 to Henry T. Wright of Morgan Park, Illinois, and is the mother of four children. She lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1881 until 1897, when she removed to Chicago. Since 1902 her home has been in Pueblo.

She is prominent as an artist, and while her first work was in oils, it is her work in ceramics, which gives her the position she occupies in the world of art. Her work is notable for its fine feeling, for color values and harmony, and in illusive shading and blending. Her designing is wonderful, enabling her to pat into form her color schemes.

Her first original work was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and received the highest award for original design and coloring. The following year she exhibited at Chicago, where her work was so different from the rest of the exhibit, that it attracted instant and marked attention from art critics and art writers. Each year following her exhibit was larger and finer, and art critics recognizing the fact that she had opened up a new thought in decorative art, her work won full and complete recognition.

Mrs. Wright is not the student of any school, and all that she has accomplished is the result of her genius, and her untiring work and continuous study, carried on for the most part in her own home.

One of the notable examples of her work is seen in the decoration of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company's hospital at Pueblo. The decoration includes eight panels filled with life-size portraits, done on tiling in monochrome, of some of the great workers connected with the history and development of the healing art

She has exhibited her work at the Chicago, Buffalo and St. Louis expositions, and at art exhibitions the country over. The honors and awards taken by her where she has exhibited are many, and she is always spoken of in the highest terms of praise by the art critics. They all say of her work, that it is absolutely original in design, and beautiful in color, and some of them do not hesitate to pronounce her among the greatest of American decorators in ceramics.

Women of America

Source: The Part Taken by Women in American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.