Susan Waters

Susan Catherine Moore Waters (May 18, 1823 – July 7, 1900) was an American painter. Her early career in New York and Pennsylvania focused on portraits. After moving to Bordentown, New Jersey, she specialized in paintings of animals as well as the occasional still life and other subjects. She was notable as a self-taught 19th-century woman artist who supported herself and her husband through her art.

Early years

Waters was born in Binghamton, New York, to Lark Moore (a cooper) and his wife, Sally. A self-taught artist with little formal training, she attended Friendsville Boarding School, a Quaker school in Friendsville, Pennsylvania, where she helped pay tuition for her sister and herself by "painting copies for the course in Natural History."

Waters’ early paintings, along with her teaching of painting and drawing, were sufficient to ensure herself and her husband some financial security, but she wished to expand her range of subject matter, as she indicated in an 1851 letter. She and her husband switched to photography, taking daguerreotypes and ambrotypes.

Collections Waters' art is held in collections at numerous institutions, including the following:

Addison Gallery of American Art, MA Arnot Art Museum, NY Bordentown Historical Society Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New Jersey State Museum, NJ The Newark Museum of Art, NJ Roberson Museum, NY

Exhibitions Waters' art was featured in the following exhibitions: 1876 Centennial Exhibition, PA 1979 Bedford Gallery, Longwood University, VA 1980 Arnot Art Museum, NY