MARY PERRY STONE 1909- 2007

It was at age 15 in 1923 when Mary Perry first left Rhode Island to go to New York City to study art at the Art Students League . She returned to Rhode Island to finish high school, but she knew she wanted to go back to New York and continue to study art. After graduating from high school she went to Traphagen School of Fashion and Design in New York City. Mary was not interested in fashion, but her practical older sister had suggested Traphagen as it guaranteed its graduates a job after graduation. Mary said later in life, she was lucky for Traphagen despite its fine reputation for fashion, gave her, like the Art Students League, a solid art education . She graduated from Traphagen unable to find work for it was the Great Depression. In 1934 she was part of the first non- professional exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, where her sculpture won a honorable mention prize. She recalled later that it was probably the sculpture prize that made it possible for her to get on the WPA or as she referred to it as "The Project."

She became one of forty women sculptors on the New York City Federal Arts Project ( Commonly referred to as the WPA) It was during this time she began to do social- protest work which became her life long interest. Though none of her social- protest sculpture pieces from the 30's and 40's remain, there are a few photographs of some of her "Project" pieces and a few other pieces. Besides doing her own work on the NYC Federal Arts Project, she also taught children sculpture at the Harlem Art Center and the East Side House, and at the end of her Project term pointed up a sculpture for the sculpture Cesare Stea which was sent to West Point.

See her website here.