Born in Philadelphia to a Quaker family, Margaretta Shoemaker Hinchman studied with Charles Grafly, Earl Horter, and Howard Pyle. In New York, she trained with Kenyon Cox, which led to mural work and figure painting. Four of her mural paintings depciting different ports for the Sulgrave Manor (a replica of George Washington's ancestral home in England) at the Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial Exhibition were later transferred to the Neo-Classical mansion Sweet Brier in Fairmount Park. During World War 1 she served as an ambulance driver and also painted posters for the U.S. Shipping Board.
Hinchman illustrated a number of books, including Early Settlers of Nantucket: Their Associates and Descendants by her mother Lydia S. Hinchman (1901); My Busy Days: A Child’s Verse by Edith B. Sturgis (1908); and The Beauties of Fairmount Park Throughout the Year (1936).
Hinchman was awarded the Mary Smith Prize at The Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Design in1935 and in 1943; Gold & Silver Medals at the Philadelphia Plastic Club; and two prizes at the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts, among others. She was a member of many arts organizations, including the National Society of Mural Painters in New York. She was a founding member of the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and president of the Arts & Crafts Guild for seven years. She was also an early member of The Plastic Club.
HInchman's work resides in the Woodmere Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Delaware Art Museum.
Sources:
Delaware Art Museum library and archives.
https://woodmereartmuseum.org/explore-online/collection/artist/margaretta-s-hinchman
