Born in Pitcairn, New York, Lucy Bacon showed great promise as a young woman painter with direct ties to French Impressionism.  However, when she was in her late 40s, she redirected her energies to become a Christian Science practitioner and abandoned her art career.  Only minimal biographical information about her has been found by researchers, but she is credited with historical significance to California art because, as a student of Camille Pissarro, she is "the only California artist who is known to have studied directly with one of the French Impressionists" (Gerdts 111).

Bacon began her art training in New York City at the Art Students League and then in 1892, went to Paris where she enrolled at the Academie Colarossi.  However...