Cora Kelley Ward

Cora Kelley Ward (1920–1989) was born in Eunice, Louisiana and lived through the New York City art movements of the 1960s to the 1980s, such as the Color Field Movement. Ward studied painting at the Newcomb Art School at Tulane University and later earned a Master of Arts degree from Hunter College in New York City. Ward is known for her work in Abstract Expressionism and her meticulous picture-taking of the New York art scene from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Works

She studied under Josef Albers and Clement Greenberg, who became a lifelong friend to Ward. At Black Mountain College she learned the concepts of Modernism "through the teachings of European artists who taught at BMC and other schools when they fled Hitler's 'purification' of German culture". A large part of her estate, around a thousand paintings, was given as a gift to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum of Louisiana by the heirs of the state. Ward died of what is believed to be cancer at age 69.