| Eva Scott Fényes | |
| Birth Name: | Eva Scott |
| Birth Date: | November 9, 1849 |
| Birth Place: | New York City |
| Death Date: | February 3, 1930 (aged 80) |
| Death Place: | Pasadena, California |
| Nationality: | American |
| Field: | Watercolor |
Eva Scott Fényes (formerly Muse; November 9, 1849 - February 3, 1930)[1] was an American painter known for watercolor landscape of the American west.[2] She was also known for her philanthropic activities.
Eva Scott was born on November 9, 1849, in New York City as the only child of Leonard and Rebecca (Briggs) Scott. She attended Pelham Priory School, the first girls’ preparatory school in the New York area, where she received her first art training. In 1868/69 she traveled through Southern Europe and Northern Africa with her parents and spent six weeks in Egypt, where she received art training from Sanford R. Gifford.
On November 19, 1878, she married Lieutenant William S. Muse, US Marine Corps, Fort Monroe, Virginia, with whom she had one child, Leonora Scott Muse Curtin (1879-1972). In 1889, Eva and her daughter came to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to seek divorce.
In 1895, she traveled to Egypt again, where she met her second husband, Hungarian nobleman Adalbert Fényes de Csokaly. They married in Budapest in 1896 and returned to the United States.[3]
Fényes and her husband settled in Pasadena, California. She commissioned Robert D. Farquhar to design a house, known as the Fenyes Mansion, and now the home of the Pasadena Museum of History.[4] Fényes was a member of the Landmarks Club of California, the Pasadena Music and Art Association, and the Southwest Society. She also served on the board of trustees of the Southwest Museum.[5]
Though never a professional artist, Fényes was an accomplished watercolorist. With the urging of Charles Fletcher Lummis she created over 300 landscapes which often included Southwest architecture features such as missions and adobe structures.[6]
In 1926, Fényes, her daughter, and granddaughter built a home in Santa Fe, Acequia Madre House, that is now run by the Paloheimo Foundation and also home to the Women's International Study Center.
Fényes died on February 3, 1930, aged 80, in Pasadena, California.[7] Her watercolors and sketchbooks are in the collections of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, the Pasadena Museum of History and the Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe.[5]