This following biography was researched, compiled, and written by Geoffrey K. Fleming, Executive Director, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV.

THIRZA ADELINE MOSSMAN (March 8, 1895 – October 10, 1997)

A.K.A. “Thirza A. Mossman,” “T. A. Mossman”

Artist, Painter, Mathematician. Born in Nebraska (not in Kansas as some sources report), the daughter of Isabelle St. Clair (1860 – 1926) and Robert G. Mossman (1861 – 1925). Through both sides of her family, she was descended from the earliest settlers of the Nebraska Territory.  She was raised in the city of Madison, Nebraska where her father served as a county superintendent, Madison school superintendent and the manager of a lumber yard. She is named after her grandmother, Thirza Payton Mossman (1830 – 1913).

A brilliant child, in 1908 she achieved highest general average (93%) of any student in Riley County. She attended the Madison Public High School and then traveled to Lincoln to attend the University of Nebraska (today’s University of Nebraska-Lincoln). In 1914 she was inducted into the Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.), whose goal is the education and advancement of women to help “achieve their highest aspirations.”

Mossman graduated with a teacher’s diploma in 1916 and then traveled to South Sioux City, Nebraska, where she would spend her first year as an instructor. By late 1917 she was teaching in the Randolph, Nebraska schools. She then taught at St. Xavier College for Women in Chicago while attending the University of Chicago where she received an advanced degree in Mathematics.

Following her graduation, in 1921 she took up the position as acting head of the Mathematics Department at Stephens College in Missouri. Later that year she moved to Manhattan, Kansas to assume a position in the Mathematics Department of Kansas State College (later Kansas State University). During her long career as an associate professor at the College, over forty years, she attended numerous scientific and mathematical conferences across the United States.

Beginning in the late 1920s, Mossman began regular travels to the American northeast and the far west and not long after became involved with the Kansas State Federation of Art. During the late 1920s she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where one of her works was exhibited in 1929. She was certainly painting before this period but only seems to have begun exhibiting her works publicly beginning around 1929. At the 1933 statewide exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute reviewers noted: “The only artist outside [the art] department at K.S.C. whose work is represented in the exhibition is Miss Thirza Mossman, assistant professor of mathematics. Her picture is an oil study, Farmyard, Pennsylvania. She continued to regularly participate in exhibitions throughout the 1930s.

In 1935 Mossman served as a member of the “Curry Painting Committee” at Kansas State University, which worked to secure John Steuart Curry’s famous painting Sun Dogs for the University’s art collection. During this period, she also served as a member of the University’s “Friends of Art” group, eventually being elected as its secretary-treasurer.

In 1937 she lectured to the Manhattan Chapter of the P.E.O. about her sketching trips, which took her to Mexico, California, Maine as well as other “eastern cities.” The following year she lectured again (“Sketching as a Hobby”) to the group upon the subject and incorporated a solo exhibition of her paintings as part of the program. She took a sabbatical from the College during the summer of 1939 and in 1941 she participated in a conference in Kansas City organized by the Inter-American Institute. That same year she was invited to exhibit her paintings at the 17 th annual Kansas State Artist’s Exhibition in Topeka. During the 1950s she taught painting and sketching as part of the Manhattan Public Schools adult evening courses.

In 1949 she made an extensive trip that took her to Canada and the New England States, which includes stops in Rochester, N.Y., Montreal, Quebec, Brunswick then down through Maine to Portland and from there back through the Green and White Mountains and back into New York to Lake Placid. In 1960 traveled with a fellow professor extensively in Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, bringing back traditional clothing, pictures and other objects.

In 1965, Mossman retired from her position in Kansas, and temporarily moved to Bloomington, Illinois, settling into a new position at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Illinois. She also lectured at Illinois Wesleyan University before returning to Manhattan, Kansas in 1967. During her later years Mossman was heavily invested in the success of the local Humane Society and Manhattan Animal Shelter. She long resided at 1601 Fairchild Avenue in Manhattan.

Thirza A. Mossman died at the Stoneybrook Health Care Center in Manhattan, Kansas on Friday, the 10 th of October 1997 at the age of 102 years. Her services were organized by the Irvin-Parkview Funeral Home of Manhattan, and she was interred near her parents in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Madison, Nebraska.

As Mossman appears to have had a very limited period of artistic production (c. 1925-45), her paintings are uncommon on the market. At least during the early part of her career, she painted in the impressionist style and is known to have created portraits, landscapes and cityscapes, including a view of the Broad Street Theater in Philadelphia. She painted both watercolors and oils and usually signed her name as “T. A. Mossman.”

Mossman is known to have participated in the following public exhibitions: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 1929; Kansas State Federation of Art, Manhattan, KS, early 1930s (possibly); Kansas State College Museum, Manhattan, KS, 1930-31 (solo); Western Artists Exhibition, Manhattan, KS, 1932; Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, KS, 1933; Quest Club, Manhattan, KS, 1936 (solo); American Association of University Women, Kansas State College, Manhattan, KS, 1936, 1938-39, 1941; College Social Club Exhibition, Kansas State College, Manhattan, KS, 1937; P.E.O. Lecture & Exhibition, Manhattan, KS, 1938 (solo); Kansas State Artist’s Exhibition, Topeka, KS, 1941.

Mossman’s works are not known to be held in the collection of any public institutions. The majority of her works reside in private collections throughout the United States.