biography of Isobel OSBOURNE (1858-1953)

Birth place: Indianapolis

Death place: Serena Beach, CA

Addresses: San Francisco; Hawaii, 1882-c.1890; Samoa, c.1890-95; Santa Barbara, CA

Profession: Painter

Studied: with her mother, Fanny Osbourne; Calif. School Des. with Virgil Williams, 1874; Europe.

Work: de Young Mus., San Francisco.

Comments: Known as Isobel Osbourne, Isobel Osbourne Strong, and Isobel Osbourne Field. Daughter of Fanny Osbourne (see entry). She studied art with her mother in San Francisco and Europe, living in Antwerp and in France for two years. She married Joseph Strong (see entry) in 1879 and for the next several years the couple lived in Hawaii and built a house in the Nuuanu Valley in Honolulu. There Isobel painted small watercolors, taught, and helped promote her husband's career. About 1890 she and her husband joined Fanny Osbourne and her new husband Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa. Isobel and Joseph Strong divorced in the mid-1890s and Isobel moved back to California. In 1914, she married her mother's secretary, Edward Salisbury (Ned") Field. Author (as Isobel Field): This Life I've Loved, 1937 (re: her life in art).

Sources: WWW (as Isobel Osbourne Field); Hughes, Artistsin California, 415 (as Isobel Osbourne); Forbes, Encounters with Paradise, 96, 177-78, 188-89."