[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]

LAYFIELD, Alexandra E.

“Mrs Rylance”

watercolor on paper / 11.4 inches by 8.8 inches

ca1940

Meriel Rylance (née Franke) married while she was at Iowa State College and moved with her husband when he began teaching at Hastings College. Widowed at age thirty, she returned home to care for aging parents. Mrs Rylance was active in the Presbyterian church, the Iowa Presbytery and other local charities. The artist Alexandra Layfield is unfamiliar; neither are the circumstances of Mrs Rylance sitting for her. The portrait comes to the Collection on long-term loan from First Presbyterian church.