Mrs. Bertha E. Jaques

Bertha Jaques, born in 1863 in Covington, Ohio, was a talented artist who taught herself the art of etching after seeing works in this medium at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Jaques began showing her etchings only a year later, had her first exhibition at the Chicago Institute of Art in 1903, and by 1910 had established the Chicago Society of Etchers. Her desire to etch landscapes and plants took her to Japan, Holland, Egypt, Italy, Sweden, and London. Jaques was a role model for the women of her time, demonstrating that it was possible to balance a highly successful career with a woman’s duties as a wife. She died in 1941, leaving more than four hundred prints as her legacy.