Mary Porter Bigelow was born in Northamton, MA in 1886. She descended from early settlers of Florence, MA. She married George H. Bigelow who was a Boston insurance company executive and lived all her married life in Newton, MA.

Bigelow studied with her neighbor and contemporary, Charles Curtis Allan. She also studied for short periods with John Ensor, Aldro Hibbard, Anthony Thieme, and Marion Sloane.

She paintied the New England countryside, including New Hampshire, Vermont, the Berkshires, and along the New England coast. With her husband, she went on two week sketching trips where she painted small oil in “plein air” and annotated pencil sketches that she later finished into larger oil paintings in her studio.

Her works were exhibited at the Jackson (NH) Historical Society in 1985 and at the Brockton (MA) Art Museum from December 1988 to March 1989.

Her White Mountain titles include The Last Farm on Thorn Hill; Mount Washington from Benjamin Pitman Farm, Jackson, NH (1936); First Snow on Mount Washington; and Franconia Notch, NH with Cannon Mountain.

References
Women Artists of the White Mountains