Elizabeth Strong
Elizabeth Strong (1855–1941) was an American artist, known for landscape, animal and figure paintings. She was nicknamed, "the Rosa Bonheur of America". Biography. Elizabeth Strong was born on February 1, 1855, in Westport, Connecticut, to parents Margaret Dewing Bixby Strong and Reverend Joseph Dwight Strong. She and her older brother Joseph Dwight Strong Jr. attended California School of Design (now known as San Francisco Art Institute) in the early years of the school, studying with Virgil Macey Williams. After graduating in 1878, Strong traveled to Monterey, California and met Jules Tavernier, who offered her art studio space. After  six months in Monterey, Strong returned to San Francisco and received many commissions for dog portraits. She had a shared art studio with Nellie Hopps at the Old Municipal Court building (Genella Building) at 728 Montgomery Street in San Francisco, it was a building that housed many artists including her former professor Virgil Macey Williams and Jules Tavernier. Around 1881, she traveled to Europe and ended up staying for almost ten years, studying art with many masters. In 1883, she showed her first work at the Paris Salon. She returned to the United States in 1890, to Boston, Philadelphia, and  New York. She studied in the summer of 1894 with William Merritt Chase at Shinnecock Hills Summer School. In 1896, she returned to California, living in both San Francisco and the East Bay. In 1909, Strong participated in the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition and won a silver medal for her painting of cattle grazing in the Cragmont Hills in North Berkeley. Strong died in Carmel, California, on October 30, 1941. She had never married. Her work is included in various public museum collections, including Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Crocker Art Museum, Monterey Museum of Art, among others. Elizabeth