Elmer Livingston MacRae

Elmer Livingston MacRae (1875–1953) was an American visual artist known for his paintings, pastels, and sketches, and for his role as a leading member of the Cos Cob Art Colony, in Greenwich, Connecticut. MacRae was one of the organizers of the influential 1913 Armory Show in New York; he was also instrumental in founding the American Pastel Society (serving as its first secretary-treasurer), as well as the Greenwich Society of Artists.

Biography

Elmer MacRae was born in New York City in 1875. He studied at the Art Students League of New York with Robert Frederick Blum, John Henry Twachtman, H. Siddons Mowbray and James Carroll Beckwith.

In the summer of 1896, when he was 20 years old, he visited Cos Cob for a class in outdoor painting. While there, he fell in love with Emma Constant Holley, the daughter of the owner of the Holley House, where artists usually stayed during their summer seasons at the community. She gave birth to twin girls, Constant and Clarissa, on October 31, 1904.

MacRae lived at Holley House for the duration of his career. He succeeded Twachtman as head the Cos Cob colony, and for two decades Elmer and Emma continued to run the boardinghouse, which served to host artists and writers while also serving as a studio and showcase for MacRae's works. Elmer MacRae was a committed suffragist and donated one of his paintings to support the Greenwich Equal Suffrage League. He also designed the badge for the National Junior Suffrage Corps.

He died on April 2, 1953, in Cos Cob.

In 1910, MacRae joined the group of artists known as the Pastellists. In 1911, he became part of the American Association of Painters and Sculptors (AAPS), the group responsible for planning the 1913 Armory Show exhibition. He served as the Association's treasurer.

MacRae exhibited in New York and Connecticut throughout his career; a posthumous retrospective of his work was held at the Milch Gallery in New York City in 1959.