Laura Era

Era, a professional portrait and landscape artist, and teacher, was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her mother, Dorothy F. Newland, was a portrait artist who encouraged her talent and taught her to paint. Growing up, Era and her mother traveled throughout North America and Italy painting together. She later studied with artists Daniel E. Greene, Burton Silverman, and Raoul Middleman.

Era became a professional artist in 1988 and began teaching painting in 1990 from her waterfront studio in her home near Cambridge, Maryland located on the Little Choptank River. In 1997, she co-founded The Troika Gallery Fine Art Studio in Easton, Maryland. Era continues to travel to paint on location each year, with visits to England, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal, as well as the beaches of Delaware and Monhegan, Maine.

Era was awarded finalist in The Portrait Society of America’s 13th Annual Members Only Competition in December, 2017. Examples of her work can be found at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Maryland Government State Offices, Salisbury University, and in numerous private homes throughout the country as well as Europe. Era’s most famous commissioned portrait is Maryland’s Version of First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, featuring Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet. In the original 1864 painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, Anna Ella Carroll, an unrecognized member of Lincoln’s cabinet, was omitted. In Era’s version, commissioned by a local group, Carroll was added to the painting.

Era is a member of The Portrait Society of America, The Maryland Society of Portrait Painters, The Maryland Pastel Society, The Working Artists Forum and The Academy Art Museum.