Anita Willets-Burnham
1893

World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago was host to 27 million visitors. Young Anita Willets was greatly influenced by the Exposition’s exhibits of French and German Impressionist painting, the British Arts and Crafts Movement, Japanese art, and, for the first time, exhibitions of the work of many professional American women painters.

Anita Willets (foreground) sketching on
bank of Chicago River