Photo of Edith Barretto Parsons
Courtesy of Serena Pelissier

Edith Barretto Parsons was born in Halifax, Virginia in 1878 and died in New Canaan, Connecticut in 1956.  She moved to New Jersey when she was six. She credits this move as her inspiration to become an artist. From the age of 15, she studied at the Art Students’ League in New York City and was apprentice to the famous public memorialist, James Earle Frasier.

In 1908 Edith married Howard Parsons, a direct descendant of the prolific portrait painter, Rembrandt Peale, best known for his presidential portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They had one child, a daughter Edith Gilam Parsons, who married Howard French. Edith and Howard had a child, named Serena French, who married Jaime Pelissier, a goldsmith. They too had a child, Kiara.  Kiara Pelissier is the great-granddaughter of Edith Parsons, and she runs the Pelissier Galleries, which showcases the rich history of her family’s art.

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