Elizabeth Lochrie
1890 – 1981
About Elizabeth Lochrie
Elizabeth Davey Lochrie was born in Deer Lodge Montana, July 1, 1890; she was educated in Butte schools and received her art education at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1911.
During 1924-1925 she painted eighteen children’s murals for the Montana State Hospital. After 1932, Lochrie specialized in Native American portraits, particularly of Blackfeet tribal members, having produced more than a thousand watercolors, oils, murals and sculptures. She was adopted by the Blackfeet and given the name “Netchitaki” which translates as “Woman Alone In Her Way.”
Elizabeth for the rest of her life visited with many tribes throughout Montana, Wyoming and the West both to paint and learn about people. Her palette and brush captured a time when most Americans was unaware that the “old ways” were still alive. One could not have seen this without an open invite; she was truly “Woman Alone in Her Way”. She left behind a body of work which upon the back of almost everyone is written a story that allows one to be know those people that she captured through this developed bond.
Today when her works are displayed it is not uncommon for Native Americans to come and show their children their grandfathers and grandmothers. They talk about the objects in the hands, the clothes that are worn, and this is one of the greatest compliment an artist may ever receive.
Elizabeth died in the company of her family in Ojai, California in 1981.
Sources: Donald Baughman via AskArt.com
