E. Charlton Fortune · 1885–1969

E. Charlton Fortune: a biography

Euphemia Charlton Fortune, who signed her paintings "E. Charlton Fortune," trained in Britain, San Francisco and New York, painted Monterey in brilliant Impressionist color, and in later life founded a studio for Catholic liturgical art.

Sausalito, Edinburgh and London

Fortune was born in Sausalito, California, on January 15, 1885, to a Scottish father and a San Francisco-born mother; she disliked her first name, Euphemia, and was known as Effie. The family moved to Southern California in 1891, and her father died in 1894. In 1898 an aunt took her to Scotland, where she attended St. Margaret's Convent in Edinburgh until 1904, and she then studied at the St John's Wood School of Art in London.

San Francisco and New York

Returning to San Francisco in 1905, she studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art under Arthur Mathews. The 1906 earthquake destroyed the family home, almost all her paintings and the Institute itself, and in 1907 the family moved to New York, where she studied at the Art Students League until 1910 with Frank Vincent DuMond, F. Luis Mora and, in her last year, William Merritt Chase. In 1911 she exhibited 27 paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.

Monterey

Back in California, Fortune worked as an illustrator for Sunset magazine and from 1913 to 1920 spent her summers in Monterey with her mother; between 1916 and 1920 she also gave private lessons and organized outdoor painting workshops. She held solo exhibitions in San Francisco and in 1915 won silver medals at both the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and San Diego's Panama-California Exposition. Signing as "E. Charlton Fortune" helped conceal her gender.

Europe

From 1921 to 1927 Fortune lived and painted in Europe, at St. Ives in Cornwall in 1922 and 1923, then at St. Tropez and in Italy. She was elected to the Society of Scottish Artists in 1922, and in 1924 a painting of St. Ives harbor won a silver medal at the Paris Salon. Her work of these years moved toward a bolder Post-Impressionist style.

Liturgical art and legacy

Settling in Monterey in 1927, she joined the newly formed Carmel Art Association. In 1928 she co-founded a firm to design and make liturgical furnishings for Catholic churches, soon known as the Monterey Guild, and church commissions occupied most of her later career; in 1955 she received the papal award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. She died in Carmel on May 15, 1969. Her paintings are in collections including the Crocker Art Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Oakland Museum of California, the Monterey Museum of Art, the Irvine Museum and the Saint Mary's College Museum of Art.

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Sources

Written for echarltonfortune.com; facts were checked against the sources below.

1. Wikipedia, "E. Charlton Fortune." en.wikipedia.org (accessed October 2026).
2. Robert W. Edwards, Jennie V. Cannon: The Untold History of the Carmel and Berkeley Art Colonies, vol. 1, East Bay Heritage Project, 2012. Online facsimile at tfaoi.org.
3. Carmel Art Association, E. Charlton Fortune, 1885–1969, 2001.
4. Steven Stern Fine Arts, "E. Charlton Fortune" artist page. californiapaintings.com (accessed October 2026).