Painter, print maker, illustrator, and author, Peggy Bacon was known for her satirical illustrations of daily New York life. She was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut to artist parents, Charles Roswell Bacon and Elizabeth Chase, and spent much of her youth traveling internationally with them, to paint.

            She studied at the Art Student's League between 1914 and 1920, where she was especially influenced by the realistic prints of her teachers John Sloan and George Bellows. In 1920, she married artist Alexander Brook, whom she had met at the Art Students League, and during the next decade they spent time in Provincetown, Rode Island and Greenwich Village in New York City and were prominent figures in the Woodstock art colony. During this time she wrote and illustrated various children’s books and satirical book entitled “Off With Their Heads”, a comical look at thirty-nine well known fellow artists.

            In the late 1920s, she had began to explore lithographs, etchings, and pastel, but drypoint remained her favorite medium until the 1950s when she concentrated on oil painting.

            She was financially successful, selling her work well in New York, and she and her husband were part of the group of artists promoted by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. In 1940, she and her husband were divorced, and she continued to paint and also wrote novels. Her 1953 mystery, "The Inward Eye," earned the Edgar Allen Poe Mystery Award for best novel of the year. She lived to age ninety-two, spending the later years of her life at Cape Porpoise, Maine near her son, Alexander.

 Source:

Charlotte Rubinstein, "American Women Artists"

Paul Sternberg, Sr., "Art by American Women"

Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"