Summit's Own Marie Atkinson Hull -- the Grande Dame of Mississippi Artists

From MDAH Digital Archives. Hugh W. Shankle, photographer

Marie Atkinson Hull, born in Summit, MS, Sept. 28, 1890, is often called the Grande Dame of Mississippi Artists.

Best known for her landscape, portraiture and still-life oils and watercolors, Marie Hull initially studied music at Belhaven College, but soon discovered her true love was painting.  She began her study in Jackson and then pursued her passion at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1912, over her parents' objections.

She returned to Mississippi to teach at Hillman College and in 1915 left academia to teach out of her home.  In 1917, she married Jackson architect Emmett Johnston Hull.  They resided in Jackson's Belhaven neighborhood for many years.

Marie Hull had a great desire to learn and she, along with her husband, traveled the country to study under some of the country's best artists.  In addition to David Barber and Hugh Breckinridge at the Pennsylvania Academy, her instructors included Frank Vincent Dumond at the Art Students' League in New York; Robert W. Vonnoh in Connecticut and John Carlson and Robert Reid at Colorado Springs Art Center.

Her work has been exhibited in Paris, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis and, of course, her home state of Mississippi.

Marie Hull died on November 21, 1980, just past her 90th birthday.  For more details on her life and her influence on art in the state of Mississippi, please see this link.

Of note: if you think you or your parents or grandparents may own one of her originals, I would urge you to have it appraised.

Recently, Yellow Hill, one of her later works -- purchased for approximately $500 at a garage sale in Belhaven -- turned up on Antiques Road Show.  It appraised at between $10,000 to $15,000.  Click on the link to see that particular episode, featuring a lucky woman from Jackson.

To see more of her work, you can Google her name, but for those who are not so inclined, here is a link to a Jackson gallery which features her work in their Collectors' room, including the one she is painting in the above photograph in 196?.

Below is Red Parrots from the Johnson Collection, which, after viewing much of her work online, is among my favorites.