Emma Richardson Cherry was born in 1859 in Auora, Ilinois. Cherry taught art at the University of Nebraska to finance her art education in New York and Chicago. She attended the Art Students League in New York, where she studied with William Merritt Chase. Cherry was instumental in establishing the Kansas City Art Association and School of Design, the Artists Club of Denver (eventually becoming the Denver Art Museum), and the Houston Art League (becoming the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Wherever Cherry moved, an art organization would follow.
