Her style is described as "evolving from a type of Impressionism to Dynamic Symmetry".  It differed from the usual definition of Impressionism because it had more abstract forms, often geometric. 

She is listed with a variety of names:  Eleanor Eaton (1886-1890); Eleanor Gump (1895-1896); Eleanor Colburn (1900-1903).  In 1927, she changed the spelling of her first name to Elanor.

Her first husband had the last name of Eaton.  In 1898, she married Joseph Elliott Colburn, who was an artist and opthamologist, and they divorced in 1915, but she continued to use his last name.

Colburn studied with William Merritt Chase and Frank Duveneck, and attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where, in 1900, she was also a teacher.  In 1924, she and her daughter Ruth Eaton Peabody, who became a well-known artist, moved to Laguna Beach, California and built a studio on the South Coast Highway where they lived, painted and taught. 

In 1927, having recovered from some prolonged spells of illness, she resumed her painting career with seriousness, and having developed an interest in Native American culture, began traveling for subjects including to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.  She also painted in Palm Springs and other areas of California.

Colburn became a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association, which she served as Director from 1926 to 1929, and was also a member of the San Diego Art Guild and the Painters and Sculptors Club of Los Angeles.   Exhibition venues included the Cincinnati Art Museum, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego and the John Herron Institute in Indianapolis.

Elanor Colburn died in Laguna Beach on May 7, 1939.

Source:
Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West

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