Anita Willets-Burnham
1906

Marriage to Alfred Burnham, nephew of architect Daniel Burnham. The family eventually encompassed six, with births of Carol-Lou, Florence, Willets and Ann. Settling on Chicago’s North Shore, Anita Willets-Burnham would become a widely exhibited artist and longtime teacher of painting at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as giving private art classes and creating Arts and Crafts style etchings by commission.

Willets-Burnham was a member of many professional societies, including the Art Students League, the Cordon Club of Chicago, the Chicago Society of Artists, the McDowell Club, the Artists Guild of Chicago, the Art Fellowship of the Chicago Art Institute and the American Watercolor Society, many of which met in Chicago’s Fine Arts Building.

She also exhibited her work in many other cities, such as at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, in San Francisco.
dutch couple_1
family before ann