Frances Blakemore

Frances Blakemore (1906 – 1997; also published as Frances Baker and Frances Wismer) was an American-born artist, writer, curator, and art collector who spent more than 50 years of her life in Japan.

Early life and career

She was born Frances Lee Wismer in Pana, Illinois, to George Wismer, a German immigrant, and his wife Emma. In 1908, after her father won 80 acres of homestead land in a lottery, the Wismer family moved to Spokane, Washington, and opened a lunchroom. Her father died in a car accident in 1915, when Frances was nine years old. Her mother later remarried and moved the family to Mabton, Washington. Frances graduated from high school in 1924. She worked her way through the University of Washington, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1935.

During her more than ten years as a part-time student, she taught private art classes, worked as a substitute art teacher at the university, sold handmade jewelry, illustrated children's books, and designed graphic art for area businesses. In 1929 she exhibited a set of linoleum block prints at the first annual exhibition of the Northwest Printmakers and won the Purchase Prize for her print, High Water at Moore's Point, Chelan. The following year she collaborated with Seattle artist Grace Perry to publish Twelve Block Prints of Lake Chelan. a graduate student, and moved with him to Tokyo, where they taught art and English at Hosei University, Keio University, and Waseda High School. She also earned money by drawing weekly sketches for Japan News Week and painting murals. She continued making block prints and exhibiting with the Northwest Printmakers. Following her husband's death in 1994, Blakemore donated her art collection, which included her own art as well as hundreds of Japanese prints and textiles, to the Seattle Art Museum, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and the Henry Art Gallery.

A biography of Blakemore was published in 2007 by the Blakemore Foundation and the University of Washington.

Published works