Back Road to Pipersville

Born in 1883 on a farm near Decatur, Illinoi, Fern Isabel Coppedge would later recall how her vision of nature as a child was different from that of her peers: "People used to think me queer because I saw deep purples and reds and violets in a field of snow." Around 1917 she moved to Philadelphia, where she studied with Daniel Garber at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and privately with Henry Bayley Snell. She soon joined a group of women artists, who would exhibit together as The Philadelphia Ten. In 1920 Fern Coppedge moved to Lumberville, Pennsylvania, while also maintaining her studio in Philadelphia until 1929 when she built a studio and home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. During the early 1920s, she created vibrant landscapes dominated by expressive color. By the late '20s and through the 1930s, she was simplifying and designing her compositions to convey her own emotions, mood, and sense of design features that would earn Coppedge the designation of being one of the most original of the Pennsylvania school of impressionist painters.