Maybelle Richardson Stamper (American, 1907-1995) was a modernist painter and
lithographer. Born Mabelle Richardson in Dublin, New Hampshire, she studied at the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, then at the Art Students League, New York
City. The League was well known as supportive of its pupils and their work toward
technical mastery and individual style. In the early years of the 20th century it
championed figurative painting through one of its famous teachers, artist William Merritt
Chase.
Stamper left New York in 1938 for a successful teaching career at the Cincinnati Art
Academy. However, by World War II, she was in search of a more liberating situation
than the one in which she found herself. During an extended visit on Captiva Island,
Florida, from 1943 to 1946, she responded positively to the semi-tropical
environment. She permanently moved to Captiva Island in 1947, although she spent
summers at her family home in Dublin, New Hampshire.
During her years on Captiva Island, Stamper made a spiritual as well as a physical
contribution with her work when the art world was increasingly dominated by formalistic
concerns and broad social commentary. While Stamper's works refer to her experience of
the natural world, they also spring from a psychological source, the world of her