Known for her etchings of Texas cowboys and the only noted early 20th-century woman popularizing Texas subjects, Mary Bonner was born in Bastrop, Louisiana but lived most of her life in San Antonio with long periods of time in Paris, France. She learned first hand about Texas cowboys and their lives, and this inspired her artwork, which brought her much acclaim.

She began her formal art training at age sixteen, and her first teacher was Robert Onderdonk. However, she was not totally committed as an artist until 1922 when she began etching, having been advised to do so from an old lithographer. She studied in Munich in 1914 at the beginning of World War I, and was forced to return home, so she enrolled at the Stickney School in Pasad...