Eleanor Norcross

Ella Augusta "Eleanor" Norcross (June 24, 1854 – October 19, 1923) was an American painter who studied below William Merritt Chase and Alfred Stevens. She lived the majority of her adult energy in Paris, France, as an artiste and stasher and spent the summers in her hometown of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Norcross painted Impressionist portraits and yet lifes, and is greater than before known for her paintings of genteel interiors.

Her father provided her a suitable living, under the proviso that she would not sell her paintings. With a spirit mission to offer people from her hometown the ability to view great works of art, Norcross collected art, made copies of paintings of Old Masters, and systematically documented decorative arts from the 12th through the 19th century. Her funding and art growth were used to sustain the Fitchburg Art Museum.

In 1924, her works were shown posthumously in Paris at the Louvre and Salon d'Automne, where Norcross was the first American to have had a retrospective. Her works were afterward shown the in the same way as year at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.