Art

Annie Cooper Boyd was a dedicated and prolific visual artist throughout her life and often referred to art as her “chosen profession.”  In 1882, when she was seventeen years old, Annie wrote in her diary, “ I painted nearly all the time & of course that was bliss for me.”  Although Annie had some artistic instruction over the years–including private drawing lessons in her teens, painting lessons at the Misses Granbery school in New York City, and in her early thirties classes at William Merritt Chase’s Shinnecock Hills summer art school—mostly she was self-taught. Over the years, Annie completed hundreds of water colors, oil paintings, and drawings of still lifes, portraits, and Sag Harbor and East End landscapes. She also illustrated several historical booklets about Sag harbor, adorned the Annie Cooper Boyd house with whimsical murals, and created and painted original postcards, greeting cards, and calling cards. When Annie was in her seventies, she had the pleasure of making money from her art and was commissioned to paint a road sign for Sag Harbor Village, and the local officials and businessmen paid to have postcards printed of her hand painted drawings and poems of Sag Harbor and Montauk.

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