Biography
Artist Beth Van Hoesen was born in Boise, Idaho, in 1925. In 1948 she received her bachelor's degree from Stanford University. She followed up her studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Fontainebleau, the Academie Julian, and at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. She finished her education at the California School of Fine Arts (later called the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1951 where she studied under painters David Park and Clyfford Still.
Although Van Hoesen was widely known for her prints of dogs, animals, and flowers, one of her first published projects was a portfolio of male nudes published by Crown Press. She also did an underappreciated series in the late 80s and early 90s of people from San Francisco's Castro district that followed the colorful and eccentric punk scene.
Van Hoesen made her home for almost 50 years in a 1910 firehouse in the Noe Valley district of San Francisco with watercolorist and tapestry designer Iv/ark Adams, whom she married in 1953. She died in November of 2010. Van Hoesen is remembered for her precision of line and her ability to modernize those in nature through anthropomorphism.