Marie Goth
Courtesy of Allison Transmission, Indiana State Library
Marie Goth was born to musicians in Indianapolis. After briefly thinking she would follow in her parents’ footsteps, she ultimately decided to become an artist. She attended Manual Training High School, focusing on drawing. She won a city-wide design contest at 16 years of age. After she graduated, she stayed at Manual working as assistant to Otto Stark, who was her father’s cousin. During this time, Goth also took courses at John Herron Art Institute.
In 1909, Goth went to New York City to enroll in the Art Students League. She studied there for 10 years, developing her love of and skill in portrait painting, before returning to Indiana. In Indianapolis, she set up a studio in her parents’ house and began making a name for herself painting portraits.
Goth moved to Brown County in 1923 to the family’s summer house and set up her studio. Three years later she became a charter member of the Brown County Art Gallery Association and cofounded the Brown County Art Guild.
© Marie Goth, Courtesy of Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
Goth continued her portrait work until the end of her life, painting the likenesses of numerous Hoosier notables, dignitaries, and her neighbors during her long career. She became the first woman in Indiana to paint an official portrait of the governor when she painted Henry F. Schricker in the early 1940s.
Much of her work has been exhibited all over the Midwest and in New York City, and she won the Jury Prize of Distinction posthumously at the Hoosier Salon’s 51st exhibition, which was held just after her passing in January 1975.
