May Suydam Palmer

Dates disputed | Artist and member of the Palmer family

May Suydam Palmer studied painting with John White Alexander in New York and sculpture with Auguste Rodin in Paris. These are substantial lines of artistic training. She deserves an entry as an artist, even where the present record makes it easier to locate portraits of her than works made by her.

Frederick William MacMonnies painted her more than once. The Metropolitan Museum’s portrait, dated about 1903, was a birthday gift to her brother Courtlandt according to its inscription. The object connects an individual sitter, an artist, and a family act of giving; it is firmer evidence than a generalized claim that the Palmers occupied an artistic world.

May was Eva Palmer’s sister, providing an indirect family route to Natalie Barney. Her own exhibition and production history has not yet been established here. The Met dates her approximately 1870–1941, while Leontis’s cast gives 1872–1940. Both are retained as a conflict rather than averaged or silently chosen. [1,2]