Mary Curtis, known as the the "Mary Cassatt of the West", for her mother and child paintings, was a California portrait and genre specialist who by the late 19th century had received national recognition including prizes at the National Academy of Design beginning 1885.

She was born in 1848 in New York City. One year later her mother made a journey with Mary and her sister to California, via the Panama Canal, to unite with Mary's father who had joined the gold rush. The family settled in San Francisco, California where Mary learned to draw and engrave from her father who was a professional engraver.

In 1866 Mary and her sister traveled back to New York City to study wood engraving at Cooper Union. When they returned to San Francisco the sisters opened a wood engraving business. After her marriage, Mary first lived in Oakland, California with her husband Thomas Richardson, and took classes in San Francisco at the newly founded California School of Design, where she studied under Virgil Williams.

Mary Richardson exhibited her portraits and mother and child paintings at the San Francisco Art Association between 1895 and 1901; the Vickery, Atkins & Torrey Gallery, San Francisco, in 1909; and the National Academy of Design, New York City, in the late 1880's. She and her husband remained in San Francisco in a home they built for themselves in 1888.

Mary Richardson died in San Francisco, California in 1931.

Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"