Ethel Spears

Ethel Spears (1903–1974) was an American artist known for her humorous paintings of Depression-era urban life.

Education Ethel Spears was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 5, 1903, and grew up in the Beverly area.

In 2019 several of Spears' WPA murals were removed from Chicago area middle schools because of concern that the subjects depicted are primarily white and do not match the diversity of the student body today.

By the late 1950s, Spears was suffering from an illness that may have been lead poisoning from her work with enamelling. With her life partner and fellow SAIC teacher Kathleen Blackshear, she retired to Blackshear's home town of Navasota, Texas.

Spears died August 2, 1974, in Navasota. Her papers and those of Blackshear are held by the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.