Inez Whitfield

Inez Whitfield was born May 25, 1867, in German Flatts, New York, to James and Ida Dota Whitfield. She received her early education in Ilion, New York, and graduated in 1889 from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a bachelor of letters degree. After graduation, she taught at the Gardner Institute for Girls in New York City. Whitfield later left the school and formed the Whitfield-Bliss School for Girls in New York City with friend and colleague Caroline Bliss.

By 1901, Whitfield, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, had started visiting Hot Springs for the therapeutic baths and soon moved there. By 1911, she was confined to a wheelchair but continued to immerse herself in Hot Springs society.

In the late 1920s, Whitfield helped organize the first Little Theater in Hot Springs. In 1931, she helped organize the Hot Springs Garden Club and served as its first president. Having been a member of the New York branch of the American Association of University Women, Whitfield organized a Hot Springs branch in 1932 and helped young women secure scholarships bearing her name. She served as a charter member and the first president of Hot Springs’ Business and Professional Women’s Club.

Whitfield’s artistic talents were her most notable asset. Her choice of media was watercolor. Whitfield’s extensive collection of paintings represented the state’s native wildflowers. She painted them in the exact size and color, depending on the season. She visited the city’s many trails in her wheelchair to obtain specimens. Later, as she grew more famous, people would bring flowers to her from all over the state.

Whitfield was known for giving her paintings to friends, but in the 1940s, the Federated Women’s Clubs of Arkansas bought 400 of her pieces and donated them to the Arkansas Arts Center. Whitfield also displayed her paintings at the Rockefeller Center in New York and at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and an exhibit of her paintings was held at the Hot Springs Fine Arts Center as part of the Arkansas Sesquicentennial Celebration. In her later years, Whitfield lived in the Shumaker Rest Home in Hot Springs. She died there June 26, 1951, and is buried in Ilion, New York.

For additional information:

Rendleman, Ethel A. “Arkansas Wild Flower Painting.” Arkansas Gazette. May 29, 1938, p. 1, Magazine Section.

Scully, Francis J. “Inez Harrington Whitfield.” The Record 2 (1961): 24–27.

Storey, Jean. “Inez Whitfield.” The Record 24 (1983): 61–64A.

Born in Ilion, New York and a graduate of Smith College, she taught at a private school Garner Institute of New York. She co-founded the Whitfield-Bliss School for Girls. She was a charter member of the Hot Springs, Arkansas branch of the American Association of University Women, charter member of the Business and Professional Women of Hot Springs and a member of the Garden Club.Whitfield painted the wildflowers of Arkansas in exact size and colors, properly identified them with common and botanical names. She grouped them according to location and blooming seasons. Acting as artist and Conservationist friends and Boy and Girl Scouts would bring various flowers to her, she would then draw them and replant them. She was confined to a wheelchair following an accident in 1911. She says that to her flowers are humanized, each having its own personality. She exhibited in the Rockefeller Center in New York and the gallery of the Garden of Nations, and Colorado University in Boulder.

Source: AAC Files, Little Rock Womens City Club, Garden Club, September 1959