Gladys Kelley Fitch

Gladys Kelley was born in Patchogue, New York and lived in Rockville Centre and Hempstead, the daughter of William Bennett Kelley and Julia Eisele Kelley.^[4] Her father was a doctor; her brother Chester Leon Kelley was a novelist and advertising executive.^[5][6][7] She won several award at the New York School of Applied Design for Women,^[8] and her paintings were considered "the most striking work" in the school's exhibition in May 1919.^[9] While she was a student she also won a cover design contest in The Touchstone magazine; her cover was published in May 1919.^[9] Her brother married one of her art school classmates, Madelon Brasher.^[10]

Fitsch was head of the art department at the Kimberley School in Montclair, New Jersey,^[11][12] and taught at the New York School of Applied Design for Women.^[5] She was a member of the New Jersey Art Association, the Connecticut Watercolor Society, and the Lyme Art Association.^[13][14] She was a life member of the Art Students League of New York.^[15][16] In 1940, she exhibited her landscapes in watercolors, pastels and oils at the Morton Galleries in New York City,^[16][17] and one of her watercolor paintings was purchased by the Federal Works Agency for a Marine hospital in Carville, Louisiana.^[18]

In 1923, Gladys Kelley married fellow artist Eugene Camille Fitsch,^[5] who was born in Alsace and immigrated to the United States in 1913. The Fitsches divorced in 1936.^[19][20] She signed her paintings "Gladys Kelley Fitsch". She died in 1986, at the age of 89, in Waterbury, Connecticut.^[1]