BIERSCHWALE, EDNA HELEN (1907-1975). Edna Bierschwale, an Impressionist painter, was born on July 4, 1907, in Comfort, Texas, the daughter of Robert and Martha (Flach) Bierschwale. After an education in Comfort, Fredericksburg, and San Antonio, she enrolled at Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans, where she engaged in formal art studies. In 1931 she returned to Texas, joined the San Antonio artists' colony, and pursued a career in art. Her principal media were watercolors and clay; her style ranged from impressionistic in the former to art deco in the latter. Though not widely known today because her works remain in private collections, Bierschwale combined as well as if not better than any of her contemporaries the style of international impressionism with the idiom of the Hill Country. Her paintings are lyrical and nuanced. A woman of striking beauty and refinement who spent her last decades in her ancestral home in Comfort, Bierschwale was the subject of compelling portraits by Etienne Ret and Xavier Gonzales, among others. She died on January 20, 1975, in Comfort and is buried in the Comfort cemetery.
