Focusing on quiet, contemplative urban spaces! 

Born in California in 1875, Susan Watkins (1875- 1913) began her artistic training at age fifteen at the Art Student League in New York.  In 1896, shortly after her father's death, Watkins and her mother departed for Paris.  

Though Paris was home to the revolutionary art of the impressionists and a host of other avant-grade aesthetic movements, Watkins choose a more traditional path and enrolled in Collin's studio around 1897.  

During her years of study in Raphael Collin's studio, Watkins learned the carefully calibrated process that academic painters traditionally followed as they moved from initial inspiration to finished work of art.  

In 1908, Watkins painted a series of spiritual, brightly colored oil studies of Parisian scenes executed, as the Impressionists prescribed, en plein-air.  Several of these small oils depict the famed parks of Paris, focusing on quiet, contemplative urban spaces removed from the bustle of the city's streets.