I inherited this painting. A close-up of the signature is here.
Trying to research the artist yielded very little. I paid for 24 hours of access at AskART.com and found next to nothing. One Ella May (Mae) Powell was listed and it said her work was once exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago so I emailed them. Part of their reply follows:
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Thank you for your email and for your interest in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries. I did some research using some of our print and online resources to try to find more information on the artist Ella May (Mae) Powell. I was able to find more biographical information on Ella May (Mae) Powell through some of our online resources. I have attached the biographical information from AskArt and from another artist database, AKL.
I also searched the resources cited in the bibliography on AskArt to try to find more information on this artist. I was able to determine that Ms. Powell did exhibit at the Art Institute in both 1902 and 1916; I have attached a scan of the record for her in the Art Institute Annual Exhibition Record. This includes both the years she exhibited and the titles of the works. However, I was unable to find an image of any of the works exhibited. I also was able to find a little more information in our Who Was Who reference source, and I have attached the biographical information I have found, which includes an address for her in Chicago.
I also searched some of our print and online resources to try to find a signature for Ms. Powell, but unfortunately I was unable to find a signature for her. I also searched several auction databases to try to determine the value of any works by her. Lastly, I also checked some of our online resources to try to find journal or newspaper articles on Ms. Powell, and I checked an image database as well as our internal collections database to try to find images of any of her works. Unfortunately, I was unable to find articles relating to Ms. Powell or images of her work. I was able to find a free ebook available through Google that has an entry for Ella Mae Powell, and this entry includes an address in Chicago. You can view that resource here.
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Now I humbly request the help of The Teeming Millions in determining if I have a painting of any value. Thanks in advance.