Jennie V. Cannon

Jennie Amelia Vennerström Cannon
Born	August 31, 1869 Albert Lea, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	December 12, 1952 Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota; Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; National Academy of Design, New York City; New York School of Art; London School of Art.
Occupation	Painter, Etcher, Writer, and Teacher
Spouse(s)	William Austin Cannon

Jennie Amelia Vennerström Cannon, also known as Jennie Vennerstrom Cannon, (1869-1952) was an American artist who spent most of her career in California but gained national recognition. She received the first master's degree from the Art Department at Stanford University, studied in New York with William Merritt Chase, whom she befriended and later persuaded to teach at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and received both the Elliott Bronze Medal and the Langdon Prize at the National Academy of Design. From her studio-homes in Berkeley and Carmel, California, her art was sent on traveling exhibitions across the United States. She was instrumental in founding the Carmel Art Association and the California League of Fine Arts in Berkeley. She championed women’s equality in art communities across northern California. Her published art reviews appeared for decades in regional newspapers.

Jennie Amelia Vennerström was born to impoverished immigrants from Sweden on August 31, 1869 outside of Albert Lea, Minnesota. Within a few years her mother had died and her father had abandoned the family. She and her sister were passed among relatives and received little formal education. Jennie became a voracious reader and with a series of part-time jobs and special tutoring she earned a bachelor's degree from Hamline University in 1895. Her career in art quickly accelerated with her studies under Arthur Bridgman Clark and Bolton Brown at Stanford University, where she earned the first master's degree in Art. On January 9, 1898 she married the botanist William Austin Cannon in Pacific Grove, California. When the couple moved to New York City in 1901, Jennie studied with the genre painter Edgar Melville Ward at the National Academy of Design, where she was awarded the prestigious Elliott Bronze Medal in Sculpture and the Langdon Prize for Graphic Design. The following year she studied with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art, but was compelled to move in September 1903 to Tucson, Arizona to accommodate her husband’s employment. Every summer she travelled to the Monterey Peninsula on the Pacific Coast and in 1907 purchased real estate in Carmel, where she joined the local art colony and habitually exhibited at the Carmel Arts & Crafts Club.

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