Celebrated American Impressionist Martha Walter was an exceedingly successful painter during her life, received international recognition, and today she is one of the most sought after female painters. She was born in 1875 in Philadelphia and became one of William Merritt Chase’s most promising students at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (where Walter was a 1908 Cresson Traveling Scholar). In 1908, she sketched in Holland, Italy, Spain, and France, where she briefly studied at the Academie Julian and the Academie Grande Chaumiere. Disliking their traditional approach and structures, Walter left to establish her own studio. She remained in Paris for several years, developing her plein air method in the center of French Impressionism. She scrutinized the finest canvases of Degas, Pissarro, Monet, Boudin and other French masters and she gravitated to painting portraits of women and children and carnival and beach activity (for which is the most famous).

Walter returned to the United States after the outbreak of World War I and settled in the artists’ community of Gloucester, Massachusetts. She quickly became known for her beach scenes of Cape Ann, Coney Island, and Atlantic City. Painted in a bold, spontaneous style, her beach scenes capture the merriment of the summer resorts.

Martha Walter was a member only of the National Association of Women Artists (1914) and a Fellow at the PAFA because she did not have the time to socialize. All she wanted to do was paint. She exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1904 and at PAFA Annuals from 1905-1945 (winning the Mary Smith Prize in 1909 and a gold medal in 1923). Other favorite exhibition halls were the Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC), the National Academy of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, Milch Galleries (NY) and more. She was given solo exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum (1914), Galeries Georges Petit, Paris (1922), the Woodmere Art Museum (1955, including an “Ellis Island” series), a retrospective at David & David, Philadelphia (1977) and solo exhibitions (1978, 1986) and the National Arts Club in Washington, DC (1985).

Walter won many awards including prizes at PAFA and the National Association of Women Artists. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Toledo Museum of Art; the Cincinnati Art Museum; Norfolk Luxembourg Museum, Paris; the PAFA; Milwaukee Art Institute; Art Institute of Chicago; Detroit Institute of Art; Musée d’Orsay, Paris and many more.