For many creative people, the holiday season is when they finish the gifts they’ve spent hours, weeks, or even months working on for loved ones. Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-1899), an early member of East Hampton’s artist colony and the wife of Thomas Moran (1837-1926), was no different. This etching she made shows what was probably the view from her home across Town Pond with the Gardiner Mill in the background, a favorite landscape for her. It is signed by Mary with the “Christmas 1898” date added.
The scene is a familiar one since Mary often painted or etched views of Town Pond. With slight variations, this particular etching was similar to one from 1883, “Summer — Easthampton,” of which Mary had made two copies.
Mary took up painting to connect with her husband during his trips to paint landscapes. Initially a landscape artist, she worked directly from nature and first exhibited in 1869. In 1879 Thomas persuaded Mary to try etching, which quickly replaced painting as her medium. That same year, Mary was elected to the New York Etching Club, and two years later she was the only woman elected among the original members of the Painters-Etchers Society of London.
The Moran family exchanged other artworks as holiday gifts, as evidenced by a Stephen Ferris drawing of Thomas and Mary’s daughter Mary Scott Moran Tassin (1868-1955), inscribed with “Uncle Ferris, Christmas 1880, to Mary Moran.”
Sadly, the etching seen here would be among Mary Moran’s last Christmas presents, as she died before the following Christmas, on Sept. 25, 1899, after nursing her daughter Ruth through typhoid. It is not known which loved one received this work, but it came from the Moran House and Studio, which suggests it stayed in the family.
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Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is the Long Island Collection’s head of collection.
