Nell Brooker Mayhew and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America

The chapter examines the life and work of Nell Brooker Mayhew (1876–1940), a prolific American artist who remarkably contributed to the realm of architecture and interior design. Born, raised, and educated in Illinois, she moved to Southern California, where she joined the faculty at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, Pasadena and opened an art gallery. A talented painter, she pioneered a color etching process that allowed her to create unique artworks from a repetitive process of reproduction. She was active at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, and its ideals were vividly manifested in her work exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Collaboration with her sister Adelaide Danely Royer, an interior designer, presented her with the opportunity to effectively succeed as a design professional, and her studies and etchings of the surviving Spanish missions of Southern California, thoroughly regarded by proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement, graciously entwined the pursuit to document and preserve these vanishing monuments of America’s Spanish heritage. Collaborative projects with her sister and her brother-in-law, Urbana, IL, architect Joseph William Royer, and her Spanish mission etchings are emphasized. These etchings helped popularize the Spanish Mission style, vibrantly promoted by the trend.