Irene E. Parmelee

Who was Irene E. Parmelee?

Irene E. Parmelee was an American painter and portrait artist born in Guilford, Connecticut. Parmelee studied under Henry Bryant of Hartford and Nathaniel Jocelyn. She subsequently enrolled in art school at Yale, which had just begun admitting women. Parmelee later traveled to Paris and attended the Académie Julian from 1881 to 1884 where she studied with Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, Pierre Auguste Cot, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. She was a career portrait artist and operated a studio in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1875-1929.

Parmelee is also cited under the alternate spelling of Parmely. Her works can be found in the collections at Yale, the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, and the Maine State Museum.