Josephine Liddell was a regional Alaska painter best known for her pastel portraits of Alaskan sled dogs, although in the 1960s she turned more to the region's landscape for subject matter. She was the daughter of Nina Crumrine (1889-1959), also an Alaska artist.

Josephine Liddell was born April 16, 1917, in Seattle, and as a young girl, in 1923, went north with her mother to live with Nina's uncle, H.V.McGee, in Ketchikan after her parents' divorce. She received her first training in art from her mother, and was later sent to San Francisco for further schooling. Josephine also studied at the Art Center in Los Angeles and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. She and her mother were great travelers in the following decades, visiting and painting every region of Alaska as well as South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In 1959 Josephine married Robert Liddell, and the couple built a house on property owned by her mother in Haines, Alaska. After his death on June 2, 1969, she continued her professional art career, traveling worldwide, but she always returned to Alaska, her favorite place on earth, and divided her time during her last years between Seattle and Homer.

Eight of her pastel dog portraits were commissioned by the Alaska Steamship Company in 1941 for reproduction on its menu covers, and have since become collector's items.

Her works are included in the collection of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.

Josephine Crumrine Liddell died at her home in Alaska on May 10, 2005.

Sources:
Kesler Woodward, Painting in the North
Obituary, Anchorage Daily News, May 19, 2005