Born in Greenwich Village in New York City, Agnes Tait was a painter of landscapes, figures, portraits and decorative panels, as well as a print maker and children's book illustrator. Her style was romantic realist, with some of her works being allegorical. Book illustrations include Heidi in 1947 and Paco's Miracle in 1961.

From the age of fourteen, she studied intermittently for ten years (1908-1918) at the National Academy of Design in New York City with Charles Hinton, Francis Jones, and Leon Kroll.

In 1930, she received a grant from the United Fruit Company to paint tropical scenes and portraits of natives in Jamaica and Haiti, and in 1932, she painted a series of portraits commissioned by Flore...