Born in Brockport, NY on Oct. 14, 1859, Alice Chittenden came to San Francisco as a child. Her father, a prosperous miner, encouraged her art studies. Beginning a long affiliation with the School of Design, she studied there in 1877 under Virgil Williams and then taught at that school for 43 years. Her marriage to Charles Overton in 1886 was short-lived, and after their divorce she never remarried.

Over the years she made several trips to New York, France, and Italy to exhibit and study. Chittenden was active as a teacher and painter in San Francisco until her death there on Oct. 13, 1944. A prolific painter, she painted 350 varieties of California's wildflowers, a few portraits, and many landscapes.

Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
California State Library (Sacramento); California Historical Society; American Art Annual 1919-33; Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers (Fielding, Mantle); Who's Who in American Art 1936-41; Club Magazine, Aug. 1941; Women Artists of the American West; SF Examiner, 10-15-1944 (obituary).

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