Amy Otis

Mary Amy Otis (1863–1950) was an American miniaturist.

Otis was a indigenous of Sherwood, New York, and was born to a family of Quakers. Her parents had migrated to the area at different time from Massachusetts, and had seven extra children, six surviving; among them was Susan, who cutting edge became a noted physician in Cayuga County. Her grandfather was Job Otis, who later than his wife Deborah was a leader of the Otisites, and whose home may yet be seen today in Sherwood. Amy studied at Cornell University and the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, and was a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She as a consequence studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. For some years she was swift as a portraitist in Philadelphia, where she as well as taught art at Miss Capen's School for Girls from 1911 to 1914. In that year she began ham it up a professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, ultimately becoming the head of the art department. Otis retired from Wheaton in 1932. She meant the seal for the school's Alumnae Association even if she was there. After desertion Wheaton she taught for a mature at Wells College, where she was at one dwindling acting head of the Department of Art.

During her career Otis exhibited behave throughout the United States. She was a enthusiast of the Philadelphia Water Color Club, the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters, and The Plastic Club, and was a sister of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Among her pupils at Wheaton was the cutting edge Precisionist Molly Luce.

Otis was the aunt of painter Elizabeth Otis Dunn and illustrator Samuel Davis Otis, and was a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland; numerous supplementary ancestors were prominent in the records of Scituate, Massachusetts. A lecture series at Wheaton was usual in her honor by the Class of 1931 after her death. A miniature watercolor-on-ivory portrait of Dorothy Gifford, titled A College Girl, is currently owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.