James Carroll Beckwith was born in Hannibal Missouri in 1852. He was a landscape, portrait and genre painter whose Impressionist style led to esteemed recognition in the late nineteenth century.

In 1873 he went to study art in Paris and became acquainted with the expatriate painter, John Singer Sargent. Beckwith’s plein-air studies such as Bertha, c. 1892, illustrate his Impressionistic tendencies with the effects of light on the young woman’s face, hat, and dress. The broad and swift brushstrokes of blue, green, and purple, are highlighted with white and yellow. The contrasts of color and sketch-like quality of the painting classify Beckwith’s significant and beautifully rendered contribution to American Impressionism.