Lydia Purdy Hess (April 8, 1866 – November 30, 1936) was an American artist best known for her Portrait of Miss E. H., which was exhibited at the Paris Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
[3] Hess's Portrait of Miss E. H. was exhibited at the Paris Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1892; at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia early in 1893; and at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago later in 1893.
[2][4][5] The oil painting is on exhibit at Orchard Lawn, the home of the Mineral Point Historical Society.
The subject of the portrait, Miss Ena Hutchison, attended school at the Art Institute of Chicago with Hess.
[2] That year, Hess began her studies at the Académie Delécluse in France, and later she attended classes with James Abbott McNeill Whistler.