American Art Collaborative

Painter, mural painter, book illustrator; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in Oxford, Ohio, Emerson studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with John Vanderpoel and Thomas Wood Stevens and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Cecilia Beaux, Violet Oakley, and Daniel Garber. She assisted Violet Oakley primarily between 1917 and 1930 and shared her studio from 1918 until Oakley's death in 1961. Emerson served on the Board of Directors of the Woodmere Art Gallery beginning in 1940, subsequently becoming Curator. She was also a founding member of the Violet Oakley Memorial Foundation.