Mary Nimmo Moran
Birth Date: May 16, 1842
Death Date: September 25, 1899
Artist Gallery
“The Moran family is the most famous one in the part of the country for the extent and variety of the divine gifts lavished upon it by the custodian of genius. There are 16 members of it who are painters, etchers and illustrators, and an even dozen of these are so near the head of their class that they are known at the Twelve Apostles” writes Francis Benson in 1893. Mary Nimmo Moran was one of the leading members of both the “Twelve Apostles” and of the American etching movement of the 1880s. Born in Stathaven, Scotland, May 16, 1842, Mary Nimmo came to America as a child and settled in Crescentville, Pennsylvania. Their Neighbors were the Morans who had moved to the same area in 1858. When Thomas returned from studying in England in 1862, he married Mary after a two-year courtship in 1863. By all accounts, Mary was vivacious, well liked, intelligent and warm, and her marriage to Thomas was well suited and happy for them both. In the 1870s the Morans built a summer home in Easthampton. She is said to have studied with her husband. About 1879 Moran took up etching. In her first attempt at etching in 1879 she coated her copper calling card plate and did the St. John River scene. She had gone to Easton, Pennsylvania for the summer with her children. “One summer day she ventured about and in one hand she had her copper plate and in her other hand her daughter, Ruth according to Wilkins. She made a small sketch of a bridge across from the Bushkill River – she bit both plates and took impressions, and so her involvement in the art of etching began”. Moran’s daughter Ruth contracted typhoid fever in 1899 and in caring for her; Mary lost much of her own strength, and fell ill. Ruth recovered, but Mary Nimmo Moran passed away September 25, 1899. She is buried above Easthampton Town Pond on a hill in a family monument with trees, a windmill and the sea nearby. Alfred Trumble in the Klackner Catalogue of a join exhibition of Thomas and Mary in 1889 stated, “the success of Mrs. Mary Nimmo Moran as an etcher is due entirely to her devoted study of nature. Her research into its beauties is profound in every line she traces upon copper her subtle sympathy with nature is revealed”. Mary Nimmo Moran went on to become the foremost woman etching artist in America.