Achsah Barlow Brewster

Who is Achsah Barlow Brewster?

Achsah Barlow Brewster was an American painter and writer, and wife of artist Earl Brewster. They are best known today for their close friendship with such prominent figures of the time as D. H. Lawrence, Willa Cather and the Nehru family.

Achsah Leona Barlow Brewster was born in 1878 in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Smith College in 1902, she went to New York City where she studied art under Kenyon Cox, Arthur Wesley Dow, Walter A. Clark and Frank Vincent DuMond at the Art Students League and with Robert Henri at the New York School of Art. During 1906-07 she studied in France at the Institut des Beaux Arts and the studios of Lucien Simon and Castelluchio. She also visited art galleries in England, Belgium, Holland and Italy. After returning to the United States, she spent three summers at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire.

In 1904 Achsah and Earl Brewster were introduced by the poet Vachel Lindsay after he noticed that Earl's imaginary portrait of a woman for a magazine cover closely resembled her. The Brewsters were married in 1910 and immediately moved to Italy. They never returned to the United States except for a short visit in 1923. They lived mostly in southern Italy but also spent time in France, Greece and Ceylon. In 1935 they moved to Crank's Ridge in Almora, Uttar Pradesh, India, where they lived from 1935 until they died, Achsah in 1945 and Earl in 1957. They had one daughter, Harwood, who was born in 1912 in Paris and became the model for many of Achsah's paintings and the subject of her vivid memoir, The Child.