"Laura Wheeler Warning" (May 16,1887-February 3,1948)

Painter and educator was born in Hartford Connecticut.The fourth child of six born to Rev. Robert Foster Wheeler;She graduated from from Hartford High School in 1906 with honors and went on to study for another six years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,one of the leading art institutes in the United States.In 1914,she received the A. William Emlen Cresson memorial Travel Scholarship that allowed her to continue her studies of arts in major cities of Europe for a short period of time.Upon her return,she worked at the all-black Cheyney Training School for Teachers in Philadelphia,where she established both art and music programs,which she directed for over thirty years.In 1924,she traveled again to Europe she produced her first paintings,some of which would be exhibited in Paris art galleries.One piece,Houses at Semur,which she painted in France,would receive wide acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.With European recognition,Laura's work was now in demand in America galleries as well including the Corcoran Gallery in Washington,D.C.,the Brooklyn Museum,and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.Laura's also painted murals and landscapes of both America and Europe,which gained her wide acclaim.She is distinguished from other America painters of the period not only for her talent but also for the unusual amount of formal training she underwent.On her first trip abroad in 1914,she spent much time in the Louvre where she studied the works  of several masters painters.She also traveled to Luxemburg to study the paintings of Claude Monet.Her second trip in 1924 took her to London,Dublin,Rome,Paris and North Africa.She married Walter E. Waring,who was a professor at Lincoln University, in 1927.They had no children.She died after a long illness in her home in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.