Jessie Beard Rickly (1895-1975) was an American artist who was born in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. When she turned 18, she moved to St. Louis to attend the St. Louis School of Fine Arts under Edmund Wuerpel and Oscar Berninghaus. She was a part of an honorary sorority called Shikari, which consisted of artists who also attended the school and was also founded by Aimee Schweig, a close friend of Rickly. Rickly also studied at Harvard with a summer scholarship. Rickly was known for stance against the idea that professional art was not suitable for women. She married Francis Rickly in 1922 and kept a rigorous balance between home and her art life. She described herself as a painter who keeps house, not a housekeeper who paints. She would dedicate long hours to her work and would be deeply absorbed in whatever she was working on, to the point where she would become aloof and inaccessible to anyone who was close to her. In 1932, Rickly alongside Schweig and Bernard Peters would be key in founding the Ste. Genevieve Artists' Colony, which had become one of the staples of regionalist artist communities around that time. While the Ste. Genevieve colony had similar goals of providing artists with the space for experimentation, dialog or a forum to display work, the artists at Ste. Genevieve were highly individualistic in style. The colony's roster included Missouri artists like Thomas Hart Benton, Joe Jones and Joseph Paul Vorst. In 1934, Rickly and Schweig ran a summer art school associated with the colony. Rickly had a very outspoken political voice in the art community. She founded The New Hats, which sought to promote contemporary art and regionalism in St. Louis. Rickly and Mabel Meeker Edsall, a St. Louis artist, would often put on multiple joint exhibitions, usually displaying politcal themes. In 1944, their exhibition "The Battlecry of Freedom" made headlines when 12 canvases were removed by the St. Louis Artists' Guild Board of Directors for objectionable content. This raised concerns over censorship in the arts and many people in the St. Louis community shared support towards Rickly and Edsall. They eventually returned in 1951 with their exhibition entitled "Forever Free." Rickly passed away in 1975 and had her body was given to the Washington University School of Medicine.
