User:BillDonelson/Mary Hooper Donelson

Mary Hooper Donelson (Jones Stevens) (1906-2000) was a noted Nashville, Tennessee artist, sculptor and agriculturist.

Third-great-granddaughter of Colonel John Donelson (father of Rachel Donelson Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson) who led a 1,000 mile voyage down the Holston, Tennessee and up the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers to found the City of Nashville on April 24, 1780.

Mary Hooper Donelson was born on January 2, 1906 at "Cleveland Hall" in Old Hickory, Tennessee, the Donelson Family home built by Stockly Donelson in 1837-41 on a land-grant estate awarded by the State of North Carolina to Colonel Donelson in 1779 for his service in the Revolutionary War.

Mary Hooper is the daughter of John Donelson VI and Bettie Menees Hooper Donelson, who owned and resided at Cleveland Hall from 1872 to 1965. She is the sister of the late John Donelson Jr (VII), a Professional Electrical Engineer of Chattanooga and Nashville, and the late Leonard Hooper Donelson, a Professional Structural Engineer, of Kansas City, Missouri.

Mary Hooper was educated at Ward Belmont, Vanderbilt University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She studied under Guy Pène du Bois (1884–1958), American painter and critic, of Brooklyn, NY, who studied under William Chase and in Paris. Puryear Mims.

Sculpture: Tennessee State Capitol: Bronze busts of Bob & Alfred Taylor, brothers, and Governors of Tennessee in the late 1800s. Bas-relief sculpture in the Nashville/Davidson Courthouse. Bas-relief Agricultural Hall of Fame Sculpture at the Ellington Agriculture Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Reproduction of portrait of Rachel Donelson Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson, at Jackson's home, "The Hermitage", in Nashville, Tennessee. Plaster head of Laura Barbour Howe Pilcher, fellow artist and wife of Vanderbilt Neurosurgeon Dr. Cobb Pilcher.

Agriculture: Managed Cleveland Hall Farm 1952-1966 and participated in many agricultural crop and livestock research programs with the United States Department of Agriculture, Tennessee Department of Agriculture, and University of Tennessee Department of Agriculture.