Anna Milo Upjohn was an American artist, illustrator, and author whose career spanned portraiture, children's book illustration, and humanitarian service. Born in 1868, she began her artistic journey with brief studies in New York before traveling to Paris, where she received the bulk of her formal training under the tutelage of Claudio Castelucho and Lucien Simon. By the early twentieth century, Upjohn had established herself as an independent professional, gaining recognition for her sensitive portraits, paintings of children, and illustrations for various books and magazines.
The outbreak of the First World War shifted the trajectory of Upjohn's life and career. Finding herself in France at the onset of the conflict, she dedicated her efforts to humanitarian relief, working first with refugees in Paris and later assisting devastated communities in the war-torn villages of France and Belgium. This period of service deeply influenced her subsequent artistic output.
Following the war, Upjohn joined the American Red Cross as a staff artist, a position she held from 1921 to 1931. During this decade, she produced a significant body of paintings, drawings, and illustrations that came to define her late career. An avid traveler throughout her adult life, Upjohn resided primarily in New York City, Ithaca, and Washington, D.C., before her death in 1951.
