Julie Hart Beers
Julie Hart Beers Kempson (1835 – August 13, 1913) was an American landscape painter associated with the Hudson River School who was one of the very few commercially successful professional women landscape painters of her day. Life Born Julie Hart in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of James Hart and Marion (Robertson) Hart, who had immigrated from Scotland in 1831. Her older brothers William Hart and James McDougal Hart were also important landscape painters of the Hudson River School, and her nieces Letitia Bonnet Hart and Mary Theresa Hart became well-known painters as well. Another niece, Annie L. Y. Orff, became an editor and publisher. In 1853, she married journalist George Washington Beers. After his death in 1856 she and her two daughters moved to New York City, where her brothers had their studios. Like most women artists of the day, she had no formal art education, but it is thought that she was trained by her brothers. Well into her forties, with her second husband, Peter Kempson, she moved to Metuchen, New Jersey, where she set up her own studio. She continued to use the surname Beers when signing her artwork. At the time of her death she