Elizabeth Nourse (26 Oct 1859 – 08 Oct 1938) was born in the Cincinnati neighborhood Mt. Healthy. She and her twin sister Adelaide attended the attended McMicken School of Design (not the Art Academy of Cincinnati) from the age 14 to 21. Here, she trained in watercolor, oil painting, china painting, engraving, and woodcarving. Upon graduation, Adelaide married their engraving and woodcarving instructor Benn Pitman, and Elizabeth refused work as an instructor there to focus on painting. In 1882, both parents died, and Elizabeth left Cincinnati to study in New York. She returned to Cincinnati the following year, making a living painting portraits and interior designing, and spent summers in Tennessee to paint landscapes. In 1887, she attended the Academie Julian in Paris, France, with her older sister Louise. But she already had a style and her signature content: country landscapes, as well as daily rural life and portraits of black and white women at work and their children. In Paris, she shone as the best painter of her sex. Though she learned and honed her craft in Cincinnati, had she stayed, she may not have been able to be on such a pedestal. She died there in Paris.
Queens of Queen City 