A high school English teacher as well as an artist, Lila Marguerite Cabaniss became a force for art education in her native Savannah, Georgia. Her teaching career spanned over fifty years, from 1892 to 1947. Lila’s younger sister, Mary Hope Cabaniss, would also spend her career as an artist. Lila M. Cabaniss is not to be confused with Lila Peeples Cabaniss (1875–1969), another Georgia native with similar life dates.
Lila M. Cabaniss studied at the Art Students League and Columbia University, both in New York City and at Syracuse University in upstate New York. She also took courses at the University of Georgia in Athens and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Living in Savannah, Cabaniss became an active participant in local art offerings. At the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (now Telfair Museums) she probably saw exhibitions circulated by the American Federation of Arts; for instance, in 1911 paintings by Childe Hassam and William Merritt Chase were on view, followed in subsequent years by works by Robert Henri and other members of the group known as “The Eight.”
Beginning in 1915 Cabaniss developed an art curriculum for Chatham County schools. Among her papers at the Georgia Historical Society are photographs of her alongside students in the Savannah High School Art Club, one of whom was Hattie Saussy. Despite her busy schedule and many commitments, Cabaniss made two trips abroad, one in 1935 to Mexico and then one two years later to Europe.
The Savannah Art Club (now the Savannah Art Association), was established in 1920 to promote local art; notably, the association invited many northern Impressionists down to teach at Telfair in the winter. Eliot Clark and William Chadwick both taught from 1924 to 1925, and Chadwick would return in 1926 as well. Cabaniss was a student of both artists, but she was also heavily involved in the club’s administrative duties. She was the first secretary in 1920, and she subsequently served as president from 1930 to 1934. She was also a member of the Association of Georgia Artists and the Washington Water Color Club (now the Washington Water Color Association), with whom both Alma Thomas and Loïs Mailou Jones exhibited.
Cabaniss’s paintings—often lush floral arrangements—were included in exhibitions mounted by the Southern States Art League, and one of her canvases was selected for the 1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the fair was a failure due to bickering among organizers and the fact that it rained 107 of the 184 days the fair was open. Lila Cabaniss was an accomplished painter in her time, with a recognizable impressionistic style, but appreciation did not extend out of the American South during her lifetime. Nonetheless, her influence as an artist and an educator has continued to have an impact on the Georgia art community.