Known for her impressionistic watercolors, especially flowers but including landscapes and portraits, Emma Mendenhall was born in Cincinnati, Ohio at a time when it was a thriving artist community that included Frank Duveneck, John Twachtmann, Joseph De Camp, Henry Farny and Joseph Henry Sharp.

Mendenhall was the niece of Mrs. Larz Anderson, a Cincinnati art patron and philanthropist, and this connection helped the young girl become a part of local society.

She studied with Duveneck at the Cincinnati Art Academy, with Jules Lefebvre in Paris at the Julian Academy, with William Merritt Chase in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, and Charles Woodbury at his Ogunquit, Maine Summer School.

Mendenhall traveled widely, often with her friend Dixie Selden, and she painted scenes from Mexico, France, Spain and Italy and on the East Coast, was at Boothbay Harbor and Ogunquit, Maine.

She exhibited at the Paris Salon, the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in watercolor exhibits in Boston, New York, and Baltimore.

Sources:
Mary Craun and Shannon Ran, Mary Leonhard Ran Gallery in Cincinnati
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art