Eleanor Parke Custis artwork • painting • previously for sale Empty fish-wells in the harbor of Volendam

Eleanor Parke Custis was born in Columbia near Washington in 1897 into an artistic family. Her drawing talent manifested itself at a young age and her earliest known watercolor 'Girl with a cockatoo' dates from 1913, when she was 16 years old. In 1912 she began her education at the Corcoran School of Art, where she studied until 1918 and then took additional classes until 1925. She also worked with Henry Snell in Maine during the summers of 1924 and 1925. Parke Custis traveled extensively and made several trips through Europe between 1926 and 1929, during which she also visited Volendam, which was popular with foreign painters. After 1935 she devoted herself almost entirely to photography.