The painter, inventor, couturier, textile designer and ceramist Edith Varian Cockcroft (1881-1962), although acclaimed in her lifetime, was almost wholly forgotten after her death. On October 14, the historian Eve M. Kahn, a longtime New York Times contributor, will lecture about Cockcroft’s life and exhibit her artworks at Harmony Hall in Sloatsburg, New York, near the artist’s longtime home. Cockcroft, a Brooklyn native, studied art with William Merritt Chase and traveled widely before World War I. Critics lauded her atmospheric views of French and British coastal villages and portraits of nudes against vibrant fabric backdrops. Le Figaro observed that she succeeded at depicting peasant life with “ardor or roughness,” and the New York Times praised the “character and vigor” of her work. (Many reviewers mistook her for a man, since she invariably left off her
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