A pioneer female artist in a world basically reserved for men, she was an independent, dedicated professional woman in early 20th-century California. After her death, her reputation diminished, but the quality of her landscapes, interiors, figures, and murals has been rediscovered in the second half of the century.

She was born in Sausalito, across the Bay north from San Francisco to a Scottish father, William Ranken Fortune, and a mother, Helen Hersberg, who was a native of San Francisco. She did not like her given name of Euphemia, and came to be known to friends as "Effie" and usually signed her paintings "Charlton," the family name of her grandmother. From her father she inherited a cleft palette, which was a pr...