Meditations on No Gallery

 The Met has many art works that are not on display at any given moment.  Some of them rotate in a regular basis and some rarely.  This work titled Rooftops, Brooklyn by Fidelia Bridges is one seen rarely. Bridges was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1834 but moved to New York as a young woman.  She worked as a governess for a wealthy family and they thought so much of her talent that they paid for her to go to Art School in Philadelphia and when she finished they provided her a studio in their home in Brooklyn where she could work.  Although she was quite successful during her life and was compared to the much  better known Winslow Homer, after her death in 1923 she was almost completely forgotten.  The Met does have several of her works as do some other museums but unfortunately they are rarely exhibited.  

She worked often in watercolor and her delicate works of gardens and flowers are lovely.  Her works of urban buildings were done when such subjects were not common. 

This an early photograph of her.  Like many women artists she has been mostly neglected.