Beth Van Hoesen (1926-2010) was born in Boise, Idaho. She moved with her family to California, and in 1944, enrolled at Stanford University to study fine arts, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. She also attended painting classes at the Escuela de Pintura y Escultura de la Escuela Esmeralda, Mexico City in 1945-46, and in 1946-47, studied at California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now San Francisco Art Institute). After graduating from Stanford, she traveled to France and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Fontainbleau in 1948, and at the Academie Julian and Academie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris from 1948 to 1950. In 1951, she again enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, where David Park and Clyfford Still were among her influential teachers. At CSFA, she met artist and designer Mark Adams, and they married in 1953.
Throughout her career, Beth Van Hoesen distinguished herself as a draftsman and printmaker. She was honored with numerous awards and solo exhibitions at museums that included the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Boise Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; The Oakland Museum; and other institutions. A traveling exhibition organized by The Art Museum Association toured for three years to museums throughout the U.S. in the early 1980s.
