Sally Rogers (artist)

Sally Rogers (c. 1790 – 1813) was an to the fore 19th-century painter who worked holding the brush in her mouth, as she was born without arms or legs.^: 183 She was born in Lempster, New Hampshire to a "poor but respectable" family.^: 2 In order to earn a living, she became "an itinerant painter and act out woman,"^: 2 traveling from her home in 1807 to Northampton, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut upon the mannerism to New York City.^: 5 Edward Savage's Columbian Gallery in New York City, where she was known as Miss Sally Rogers, "the armless paper cutter," exhibited her and her work. It was at this tapering off that the stress moved from her as a person needing organization to her gift as an artist, and she stopped using Sally and became known as Sarah Rogers. She after that made a second visit to the gallery, when people were adept to commission works from her. After New York City, she traveled to Philadelphia, where, in 1811, the Society of Artists in the United States, formed the previous year by Charles Willson Peale and additional painters, had their first exhibition. Entry #340 was "Landscape, painted by holding the brush in the mouth, Miss Sarah Rogers." Two years later, the exhibition catalog listed two works by Sarah Rogers, “St. Scholastic (drawing or water color)” and “Mount Sidney, seat of John Barker, Esq., painted without the use of her hands (water color).” William Hamilton, whose land The Woodlands was in West Philadelphia, purchased and donated to Peale's Philadelphia Museum, a drawing of flowers by Rogers.^: 134 She with donated works to the museum. After Philadelphia, she continued upon to Baltimore, Washington, DC, Alexandria and Norfolk, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, before returning to Philadelphia. She died in Philadelphia in 1813, age 23.