1930s PWAP Artist of Georgetown View Discovered

For about ten years this painting titled Key Bridge has been a part of the Peabody Room's Georgetown Art Collection. Featuring an engraved metal plate reading PUBLC WORKS OF ART PROJECT, the artist's signature in the lower left corner has long been legible only as "Mary A." with the surname being a soft fuzz. 

Long-finding it frustrating that identification of the artist of this delightful 1930s painting could not be determined, I was pleased when a library patron who works at the Corcoran saw it and told me she would try to figure out who the artist is.

She did!

Mary E. Saltzman (also known as Mary Peyton Eskridge Saltzman) was born c. 1878 in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. A member of an old military family, Saltzman's grandfather was Maj. Gen. Isaac I. Stevens, after whom Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C. was named. Married to Army Maj. Gen. Charles McKinley Saltzman, who died in 1942, Mrs. Saltzman outlived him by 32 years passing away in 1974 at the age of 95.

A search of the 1877-current Washington Post database (available to anyone with a DC Public Library card) revealed that other paintings that Mrs. Saltzman rendered were Scurrying Clouds, South Portico of the White House, and The Washington Monument as Seen from the Pan American Union.  All of these paintings were completed in 1933 with the last one being housed in the  Smithsonian American Art Museum. Thus it is pretty safe to assume that Mrs. Saltzman painted this view of Key Bridge the same year. 

The painting hangs next to one of the Peabody Room's south-facing dormer windows. This allows the viewer to direct their gaze from Analostan Island (or Mason's Island as it was also called then) depicted on the left side of the painting to the real island known today as Theodore Roosevelt Island that is visible in the distance from the window.

Please visit and see both for yourself. The Peabody Room is open Monday and the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month from 9:30-5:30 and Thursday from 1-9.  For additional information call 202.727.0233 or email jerry.mccoy@dc.gov.