Grace Carpenter Hudson (1865-1937) is famous for her accurate and sensitive portraiture of the Pomo people of Northern California whom she worked with and painted almost exclusively during her long and successful career. Born in Potter Valley, California, Hudson displayed an aptitude for drawing at a young age and studied at the San Francisco School of Design in the 1880s, developing her skills in portraiture. She began exhibiting nationally in the 1890s as well as publishing her illustrations in periodicals like Cosmopolitan and Sunset thus establishing herself as one of America's earliest commercially successful female artists.