Lydia Purdy Hess
American artist

Lydia Purdy Hess (April 8, 1866 – November 30, 1936) was an American artist best known for her Portrait of Miss E. H., which was exhibited at the Paris Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Early life and education
Lydia Purdy Hess was born on April 8, 1866, in Newaygo, Michigan. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1886. According to School of the Art Institute records, she studied with Désiré Laugée at Académie Delécluse, and taught at the School from 1891 to 1895. Hess also served as assistant to the sculptor Lorado Taft. In 1894, Hess was in residence at St. Charles, Illinois.
Career
Hess's Portrait of Miss E. H. was exhibited at the Paris Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1892; at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia early in 1893; and at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago later in 1893. The oil painting is on exhibit at Orchard Lawn, the home of the Mineral Point Historical Society. The subject of the portrait, Miss Ena Hutchison, attended school at the Art Institute of Chicago with Hess.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q62018399. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866, 1936, 1893 and 1886.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lydia Purdy Hess” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.