Known for her magazine covers for McCall's, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and The Woman's Home Companion as well as celebrity portraits including famous subjects such as Charlie Chaplin and Edna St. Vincent Millay, she was a skilled artist who never gained the amount of attention she wished.

Her lithe, stylish illustration figures reflected her own sense and replaced the cute look that had been so popular. When color photography came into use and replaced much of the need for illustrators, she turned to portraiture.

She was raised in a middle class family in Quincy, Illinois and showing early art talent, attended the Chicago Art Institute. At age 25, she moved to New York City with a friend, intending to become a stage star but not succeeding there, enrolled in art classes at the Art Students League and began selling sketches to magazines. From 1923 until 1937, she designed all the covers for McCalls Magazine, and in 1923 married John Baragwanath, a mining engineer with whom she had a daughter.

She moved in high social circles with prominent people including intellectualst who hung out at the Algonquin Hotel.