Florence Julia Bach

Florence Julia Bach was a sculptor, painter, and pastel artist born in Buffalo in 1887. She began her art training at the Buffalo School of Fine Arts and continued at the Art Students League in New York, where she studied with William Merritt Chase and Frank Vincent Dumond. Afterwards, she spent several years abroad, received a diploma in sculpture from the Ecole des Beaux Art in Fontainebleau, and continued her studies in Italy, France, and Germany. 

As a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, Bach won many exhibition awards between 1915 and 1924, including the Fellowship Prize in 1917 and 1922. She became a member of the BSA Council in 1926, the same year she was a member of the jury for the Awards and Fellowship Prize. Bach served as BSA President from 1929 to 1930. She also won the Syracuse Regional Purchase Prize in 1941, the Popular Prize at the Carnegie Institute in 1949, and Gold Medal at the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club in 1954.

Bach primarily created portraits in both pastel and oil, and floral paintings that were sold at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. She had two solo shows there in 1944 and 1951, where she reported that everything she sent was sold. When asked about modern art, she said, “In the modern field, in my opinion Charles Burchfield’s paintings are at the top. The fantasy, the intentions behind the brush and their rich color give me delight and satisfaction.”

After teaching at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy for twenty-nine years, Bach moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where she taught art to women one day a week. She died in 1979.