LOCAL Houston | The City Guide August 2017 | Page 62

FOOD | ARTS | COMMUNITY | STYLE+LEISURE
Her works are included in the permanent collections of the Society of Civil Engineers in
New York, the Denver Art Association, the Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin, the San Antonio
Art League, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and in public libraries
Emma Richardson Cherry, artist and preservationist, was born in Aurora,
Illinois, on February 28, 1859. At the age of 18, to finance her art educa-
tion, she taught art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for three years
THE STORY OF HOUSTON
EMMA RICHARDSON CHERRY
By Margaret Swett Henson
Images courtesy of The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University
of Texas at Austin, Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston, Texas,
Houston Public Library, Houston, Texas
before going to New York for advanced study at the Art Students League.
She married Dillon Brooke Cherry in Nebraska before she went to Paris for
further lessons.
The Cherrys moved from Denver to Houston about 1893 and later bought
the home of William Marsh Rice. At least one version of the story says that
Mrs. Cherry bid $25 for the ornate front door and perhaps some interior
rails and, as the sole bidder, acquired the entire house; other versions say
that her husband engineered the purchase through a sealed bid. Either way,
preservation of the Rice house is due to Emma Cherry. The residence was
eventually sold to The Heritage Society in 1954. Since 1959 it has been
open to the public in Downtown’s Sam Houston Park.
One of the earliest professional women artists in Houston, Emma Cherry
worked in oils, watercolors, pastels, pencil and charcoal. She painted a
number of traditional portraits while living in Houston and experimented
with a variety of styles. Cherry was known for her paintings of flowers and
in 1937 did a study of oleanders