She became a botanical artist out of personal tragedy. Born into landed gentry in Hastings, England, she trained as a singer until her voice failed, which first took her to painting flowers. After her mother died in 1855, she travelled as companion to her father, a prominent member of parliament. When he died in 1869, she decided to devote her life to travelling the world and painting its flora. Initially, she appears to have worked mainly in watercolour, but started to learn oils in 1867, and by the time that her visits extended beyond Europe, in the early 1870s, she had developed a lucid realist style.
Her first expeditions took her to Canada, the US and Jamaica. She met the great American landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church, and he encouraged her to journey to South America and paint there.
https://eclecticlight.co/2021/04/28/painting-within-tent-marianne-norths-plants-of-the-world-1/
