Lilla Cabot Perry (b. January 13, 1848, Boston, Massachusetts - d. February 28, 1933, Hancock, New Hampshire), was one of the first American artists to embrace impressionism during the late 19th century.

Born to the Boston Brahmin Cabot family, socialite Lilla Cabot married Thomas Sargeant Perry, a professor of literature, with whom she had three daughters. The sister-in-law of artist John La Farge, her interest in painting led her to enroll in the Boston Cowles Art School at the age of 36. One of her teachers encouraged her study art in France, then with her family she moved to Paris where she studied art at Academie Colarossi and Academie Julian.

While in Paris, she befriended Claude Monet, and for nine summers beginning in 1889 she and her family lived near Monet's home in Giverny. In addition to purchasing his art, she adopted some of Monet's impressionist style and eventually exhibited her work at the Paris Salon.

Back in Boston, she exhibited the acquired work of Monet and other impressionists in her home. She also lectured and published essays on impressionism. In 1893, seven of her works were displayed at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

In the late 1890s, Perry's husband accepted a teaching position in Japan at Tokyo's Keiogijiku University, and for three years there she painted and absorbed Japanese influences into her own works.

Throughout her career, Lilla Perry participated in numerous arts organizations including the Guild of Boston Artists, which opened galleries to promote American painters and sculptors.

In 1933, Lilla Perry died at her family farm in Hancock, New Hampshire, aged 85.

In 1995, Meredith Martindale, Pamela Moffat and Nancy Mowll Mathews wrote Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist.

-Wikipedia