Berta N. Briggs
American painter and woodcutter, 1884–1976
Upon her return to St. Paul in 1905, Briggs was appointed the first Supervisor of Handicrafts in the public schools, a position she held for three years. From 1908-1911, she organized and directed the Department of Crafts at the St. Paul Institute School of Art and taught woodblock printing, leather work, metal work, and pottery. During these years, she attended the summer school of the Minneapolis Handicraft Guild, working under Ernest Batchelder and Bertha Lum.
In 1911, Briggs moved to New York to become the head of the art department in the Charlton School, a private school for girls, where she taught art and lectured on the history of art and architecture for two years. On June 18, 1913, she married William Harlowe Briggs, an editorial executive for Harper Brothers publishers.
From 1918 to 1928, Berta Briggs lectured on the history of art at Miss Chandor’s School for girls in New York. With nine other craft workers, she founded an outlet for craftwork, the Noank Studio Guild.
In 1928, Briggs began to paint landscapes and specialized in paintings birds. From 1930 to 1932, she was President of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. She was Vice-President of the Society of Woman Geographers from 1939 to 1942, and was a member of the National Association of Women Artists.
Briggs’s book Charles Willson Peale, Artist and Patriot was published in 1952, followed by To the Shores of Tripoli, published in 1955.
Berta N. Briggs died November 12, 1976 in New York City.
(From the Finding Aid to the Berta N. Briggs Papers, 1908–1976, in the Archives of American Art, by Jean Fitzgerald)
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
American cartoonist, 1909–1956
American cartoonist, 1898–1960
American painter and illustrator, 1871–1954
American illustrator and painter, 1867–1944
American illustrator, active early 20th century
American painter, illustrator, author, 1895–1976
