Her informal portraits of children and other works drew relatively few comments on style. On an exhibition of drawings held in Boston in 1921, a critic said, "The drawings were made, sometimes with charcoal, sometimes with colored crayon.[51] The best, as so often happens, are those produced with most evident haste and spontaneity. Here and there one notes a little of that elaboration that takes the crisp edge off. In general, however, the childish forms are drawn with a taut, nervous line and with brisk indication of planes and attachments." In 1935, Howard Devree of the New York Times commented on the pastel effects she achieved, "despite use of a palette knife, through harmonizing of colors".] Another critic noted that Upjohn's informal portraits were usually done outdoors and almost never in her studio.

Anna
Milo Upjohn was an overlooked female illustrator in the school of
Jessie Willcox Smith. Her work displays a deep academic knowledge
evident in her stylized illustrations of children and engaging their
world. Signed lower right- 'A.M.UPJOHN" unframed. She was an assignment
artist for renowned women's publications such as The Woman's Home
Companion and children's books, as well as commercial assignments.s for
the Red Cross.

Anna Milo Upjohn (1868–1951) was an American artist, illustrator,
author, and relief worker who, late in her long career, became known for
paintings, drawings, and illustrations she made for the American Red
Cross. After graduating from high school, she studied art briefly in New
York but obtained most of her training in Paris from Claudio Castelucho
and Lucien Simon.[1] In the early years of the twentieth century, she
became known both for her portraits and paintings of children and for
her book and magazine illustrations. Finding herself in France at the
outset of the First World War, she devoted herself to relief work first
among the refugees in Paris and later among the devastated villages in
France and Belgium. Having spent the first half of her adult life as an
independent professional, she served as a staff artist for the American
Red Cross between 1921 and 1931. She traveled extensively during her
adult life and lived mostly in New York City; Ithaca, New York; and
Washington, D.C.
Early life and training

During the 1870s, Upjohn's family lived with her grandfather, a
well-known architect named Richard Upjohn who had retired to a scenic
home in Garrison, New York. Richard Upjohn's biographer says when she
was about five she would accompany him as he sketched and painted. She
questioned him about his color choices and learned that artists often
chose colors different from the ones present in the subjects they
painted. He also showed her engravings of famous paintings, explaining
what made them great and where they fell short in his view.[2] Her
family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin when she graduated from high
school in 1887.[3] A few years later, the family moved to New York,
where, in the early 1890s, she took classes at the Cooper Union Woman's
Art School.[4] She began her foreign travels in 1893 and during the next
few years studied art in Munich, Florence, and Paris.[5] In 1902, she
took an illustration class at the National Academy of Design and the
following year won the Academy's Suydam silver medal for her work.[6]
Between 1909 and 1912, she studied and traveled in Europe's other major
cities.[7] In 1922, Upjohn told a reporter that she had studied art "in
many places, usually for a few months at a time and disconnectedly, but
what counted most was the work she did in Paris under Castelucho and
Lucien Simon.”[1] Born in Barcelona, Castelucho's birth name was Claudi
Catelucho Diana, but he went by his surname alone. In Paris during the
early years of the twentieth century, he and Simon both trained private
students and both taught at two mondernist alternatives to the École des
Beaux Arts: the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande
Chaumière.[8] Upjohn did not say whether she took private lessons,
classes, or both.
Career in art
Image No. 1, Anna Milo Upjohn, Young Boy Going Fishing, 1910, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches

In 1890, at the age of twenty-one, Upjohn completed a painting of
angels for St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her
uncle Richard M. Upjohn had designed the building and her father was
currently its rector (having succeeded John Henry Hobart Brown his
brother-in-law). Reporting on the installation of the painting, a local
journalist said the angels were "finely executed." The following year,
she completed another painting for the cathedral. Measuring eight by
fourteen feet, it depicted adoring saints and was placed in the cancel. A
local reporter said it reflected "great credit upon the artist." In
1896, Upjohn had a portrait accepted for display in the autumn
exhibition at the National Academy of Design. Called an "uncompromising
portrait of a lady" by a local critic, the painting was the first of her
formal portraits to gain recognition.[11] A decade later, she told a
reporter she was particularly proud to be included in this show. During
travels to paint and study art in Europe in the 1890s, Upjohn
participated in exhibitions held in Baden Baden, Paris, and Munich. In
1901, she showed paintings of children in a solo exhibition held at the
gallery of the Kilohana Art League in Honolulu, Hawaii. Reviewing the
show, a local critic said "One can be sanely and intelligently
enthusiastic over Miss Anna M. Upjohn's child pictures. Anything more
ideally perfect in this line than her "Children" and "A Child" is hard
to find. Her work is unusually bold.Upjohn traveled to paint and study
again during the years between 1900 and 1914. In 1910, she made a
characteristic painting of a cheerful boy carrying a fishing pole (see
Image No. 1, above).

She was living in Brooklyn in 1912 when she executed a commission
from Cornell alumni for a portrait of her uncle, Charles Babcock, a
professor of architecture (emeritus) at the university At this time, she
became a member of the MacDowell Club of New York and participated one
of the club's exhibitions in 1913. Reviewing this show, a critic for the
New York Times singled out a painting of Scandinavian children for its
good characterization and "freshness and force of color" During the next
few years, Upjohn contributed frequently to MacDowell club
exhibitions.In 1914, the prestigious International Studio art magazine
reproduced two paintings from a then-current exhibition and its critic
called her "one of the best contributors lately at the MacDowell
Club".[17] The following year, a critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
said a painting of a child seen in a club exhibition was "one of the
strongest and best types of youngsters in paint, which can be
imagined."[18] During these pre-war years, she also exhibited at the
Grand Central, Knoeller, Macbeth, and Anderson galleries in New York.

Subjects of commissioned formal portraits in this period include
Helen Van Vechten, maker of [[Fine press}fine-press]] books; A. Cameron
MacKenzie, president of Elmira College; General George Wood Wingate an
early leader of the National Rifle Association and founder of a NY boys'
club; Mary Williams, an Ithaca matriarch; and notables connected with
Cornell University, including Andrew Dickson White, a historian and one
of the founders of the university, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, an
ornithologist, illustrator and artist, and the anatomist Charles Rupert
Stockard

When she gave a solo exhibition at the Cornell College of
Architecture in 1913, the local paper called her work "captivating" and
said a painting of a Portuguese fisher girl gave "true joy" in its
"fresh execution".[19] Another solo show, this time at the Arnot Gallery
of Elmira College, was said to be a "beautiful exhibit" of portraits
and paintings of children.In 1915, a Wisconsin seed company bought a
painting she had made of her six-year-old sister at work in a garden.
The company made posters of the painting to use as promotional
materials.
Image No. 2, Anna Milo Upjohn, Traversez la Vie Comme des
Petits Soldats Garçons et Filles, illustration, Junior Red Cross News,
September 1919

Upjohn's career changed abruptly at the outbreak of the First World
War. Happening to be in Paris when war was declared, she volunteered her
services to the local American Episcopal church in its efforts to help
the refugees who poured into the city.On her return to New York in 1915,
she solicited funds to support relief organizations and sold her
drawings and paintings to raise money for them.[28][29] She returned to
France in 1916 and spent most of her time doing relief work there and in
Belgium during the rest of the war. When, in 1917, the Paris-based
Children's Bureau of the American Red Cross (ARC) asked her to make
paintings for a series of health posters, she was reluctant to take time
away from her relief work but she made five canvases for them all the
same.In 1919, Upjohn visited war-devastated countries to make drawings
and paintings for the Junior Red Cross (JRC). The ARC had set up the
American Junior Red Cross in 1917 with three main objectives: to educate
American children about the war and its impact on European children, to
obtain donations of clothing and other goods, and to solicit donations
for relief work Upjohn's role was to make works of art depicting
European children in a favorable light: cheerful and friendly despite
their difficult circumstances. In September 1919, a striking drawing by
Upjohn appeared in the first issue of the ARC's Junior Red Cross News
with the caption, "This picture of boys and girls of France, with their
beloved Tricolor, served as a poster in the Child Welfare Exhibits held
in various cities of France a few months ago by the Children’s Bureau of
the American Red Cross. It is the work of Miss Anna Milo Upjohn, a New
York portrait painter, with the American Red Cross in Europe."

Upjohn's career reached another turning point in 1921 when she joined
the JRC as a staff artist.The was then 53. Her professional career had
begun thirty years earlier and would continue another two decades. Her
new position gave her financial stability and welcome opportunities to
travel. It did not prevent her from continuing to make and exhibit her
paintings and drawings. In 1921, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington,
D.C. mounted a solo exhibition of drawings she had made in Europe while
on assignment for the JRC.Reproductions of the drawings had previously
been printed in issues of Junior Red Cross News and, in announcing the
exhibition, the journal's editor had restated the organization's
objective as giving American children "an intelligent, sympathetic
understanding" of the children in war-torn European countries.The show
generated considerable publicity in Washington with one critic saying
Upjohn had "presented not only the pathetic, but the humorous, and has
in many instances given her sketches the homely touch which makes for
universal appeal." Subsequently put on tour across the country, the
drawings continued to draw critical notice, including a comment that the
drawings showed a "homely touch" making for "universal appeal".Early in
1923, Upjohn visited the American West for the JRC to sketch Indian
children and later that year the organization sent her on a tour around
the world from west to east.[36] After her arrival in Honolulu, a
reporter described her child studies as "authoritative" and effective in
achieving the JRC's goals of sympathy and understanding.On her return
to the United States, the Maryland Institute in Baltimore exhibited a
large number of her drawings from East- and Southeast Asia as well as
Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe, the collection showing, as one
critic said, "not pictures of children suffering, but happy childhood
under varying conditions of life".[38]

In 1935, the Cronyn & Lowndes Gallery in Manhattan gave Upjohn an
exhibition of her paintings, including both formal portraits and
informal child studies. Writing in the New York Times, the critic,
Howard Devree, saw "competent, honest work rather on the conventional
side". Another critic noted the significance of the formal portraits but
said the child studies were the most interesting element in the show.

Upjohn resigned her position at the Junior Red Cross in 1931, but she
continued to make drawings for its publications.During the 1930s, the
ARC continued to tour exhibitions of her paintings, watercolors, and
drawings to public libraries and other exhibition spaces throughout the
United States.In Mansfield, Ohio, the local newspaper headlined Upjohn
as a "Famous Artist" whose work appeared in ARC posters, JRC literature,
and other media.

Exhibitions of Upjohn's paintings and drawings were less frequent
from 1940 onward and the last may have been the one held in the public
library of Somerset, Pennsylvania, in June 1945.
Artistic style

Upjohn trained as both artist and illustrator. She attracted most
critical notice for her portraits and other paintings and invariably put
"artist" when asked to give her occupation. She painted in oil on
canvas; made gouache, watercolor, and wash drawings; and often worked in
charcoal or crayon.[48] She was best known for her formal portraits and
informal depictions of children. She also made paintings of religious
subjects and some landscapes.

Critics discussed the quality of her portraits without commenting on
style. One called an early portrait "uncompromising".[11] Another rated
her portrait of John van Benschoten one of the "strongest" in the
exhibition where it appeared. (The sitter was probably a brother of
Upjohn's close friend, Augusta K. van Benschoten.) Her portrait of a
woman named Elizabeth Spencer was said to be "well posed and fluent".
Two of her portraits, one showing Andrew Dickson White and the other
Louis Agassiz Fuertes were claimed to be "two of the best in the
possession of Cornell University".

Her informal portraits of children and other works drew relatively
few comments on style. On an exhibition of drawings held in Boston in
1921, a critic said, "The drawings were made, sometimes with charcoal,
sometimes with colored crayon.[51] The best, as so often happens, are
those produced with most evident haste and spontaneity. Here and there
one notes a little of that elaboration that takes the crisp edge off. In
general, however, the childish forms are drawn with a taut, nervous
line and with brisk indication of planes and attachments." In 1935,
Howard Devree of the New York Times commented on the pastel effects she
achieved, "despite use of a palette knife, through harmonizing of
colors".] Another critic noted that Upjohn's informal portraits were
usually done outdoors and almost never in her studio.