Born in Mount Kisco, New York, animal sculptor Madeleine Park was fond of playing with her many pets as a child. She attended the Emily Fowler School in Mount Kisco and then went to Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, graduating in 1910.

She enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City, but her family made her quit because they disapproved of the Life Class with nude models. In 1913, she married Harold Park, also an artist, and they had a family which temporarily put her career on hold.

She took painting from George Barse in Katonah New York, and in 1928 went to Italy with the Barses, which gave her more exposure to sculpture. In Connecticut, she enrolled in the studio of A. Phimister Proctor, a renowned animal sc...