Shelby Shackelford

Shelby Shackelford (1899–1987) was an American performer who worked mainly within the art communities of Baltimore, Maryland, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her paintings, drawings, and prints were abstract, but not nonobjective. Each of them had, as she said, "a arrival in a visual experience". Early in her career, during a period considering many in Baltimore were unfriendly to what locals called "advanced" trends in art, her paintings were stigmatized as "meaningless stuff". After helping to counteract these local prejudices, she embarked upon a long times of experimentation in media and technique, maintaining, as she wrote in 1957, that painting was, "an adventure, a process of discovery for which there should be no end". Critics praised Shackelford for "refinement and sureness of entrйe and execution", "unusual and amusing arrangements of color and line", "taste and imagination", and "paintings are abstract, well-constructed, with variety of forms, and outstanding color". In supplement to making art, Shackelford taught art classes to children and adults, was an swift participant in arts organizations, and both wrote and illustrated books that standard extensive attention from baby book reviewers.