Hilda Belcher

Born in Pittsford, Vermont, Belcher was the daughter of artist Martha Wood Belcher and Stephen Paterson Belcher, a manufacturer of stained glass. With her family, she relocated to Newark, New Jersey, as a teenager. After high school, she enrolled at the New York School of Art where she studied with William Merritt Chase, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Robert Henri. She studied privately with George Luks and George Bellows. As a young woman, she traveled extensively in Europe and the American West with her mother. She earned success as a portrait painter and worked in Savannah, Georgia, New York, and Vermont. Belcher also published cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations in popular magazines and catalogues.