Susan Watkins was an American artist, known for painting in the styles of realism and impressionism. She studied under William Merritt Chase and Raphaël Collin. Two of her pieces are on permanent display at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.
Susan Watkins was born on June 5, 1875, in Lake County, California to the prominent and wealthy San Francisco family of Susan Ella Owens and James Thomas Watkins. Her father was a California newspaper editor. Her grandfather, Commodore James T. Watkins, was a trans-Pacific ship captain. He was regarded as a hero for saving the passengers and crew of a ship caught in a storm en route from San Francisco to New York. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem about this heroic act titled "The Three Bells". She had two siblings- a brother, James and a sister, Eleanor Watkins Reeves (the subject of her later work Lady in Yellow, and wife of Joseph Mason Reeves).
Watkins attended E. L. Murison School in California and later, Gibbons School in New York City. At age 15 she moved to New York City, where her father began work as an editor for The New York Sun. While in New York from 1890 - 1896 she studied at the Art Students League of New York and was taught by William Merritt Chase. Chase once referred to her as "the best woman painter living".
After Watkins's father died in 1896, she and her mother moved to Paris and her mother encouraged her to pursue her interest in painting. She was likely drawn to France to continue her studies because the French government at the time supported artists in ways that the United States did not. In Paris, Watkins studied under Raphaël Collin at the Académie Julian for ten years, and was recognized as one of his finest students. Collin instructed his students on drawing, anatomy, and studies of the nude model with the ultimate goal of understanding and accurately depicting the human form. The Chrysler Museum of Art has numerous sketches - referred to as académies - drawn by Watkins during her time at the Académie, which demonstrate her comprehension of Collin's teachings.