Original Impressionist Painting by Elizabeth Curtis "Marin County Swimming Pool"

This impressionist painting by Elizabeth Curtis, oil on canvas, is called “Marin County Swimming Pool.” A San Francisco native born in 1865-1953, she is known for painting scenes from her travels throughout California, England, and Holland. Elizabeth “Bessie” Curtis was artistically inclined as a child.  She began art studies at the local Art Students League and further studied at the Gotham Art League in NYC and Académie Delecluse in Paris.  While in her teens, she established a studio in her native city and one across the Golden Gate in Bolinas.

By 1889, she was among the teaching staff at the Art Students League in San Francisco. She then went to England to study art, married singer Denis O’Sullivan in 1893, and settled in London, though she traveled extensively.  During the 1890s, she made extended trips to Holland, she continued to travel extensively.  During the 1890a, she made extended trips to Holland and returned to San Francisco in 1898 with scenes of that country and Dutch children at play.

Elizabeth Curtis is the youngest of her family’s seven children. She was the daughter of  William Edmund Curtis, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of New York State, and Mary Ann (Scovill) Curtis, whose father founded Scovill Manufacturing Company in Waterbury, Connecticut. Elizabeth may have been named after her grandmother, Elizabeth (Edmund) Curtis,  who studied at the Art Students League of New York with John Henry Twachtman and William Merritt Chase and was exhibiting her work by the late 1890s.  In the Fall of 1899, she lived in Paris. In 1901, she received high praise for an exhibit of 30 paintings at the Clausen Gallery.