Sarah McRae Morton is noted for her lushly painted images that bridge contemporary and historical concerns. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, she began painting at a young age and started formal training in color theory, classical design, and oil painting during high school. Further studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and courses at the University of Pennsylvania led to a travel fellowship in Europe, where she trained with the celebrated figurative painter Odd Nerdrum in Norway and at the Vatican Museums Laboratory in Rome. McRae Morton’s deep knowledge of art, history, and literature informs her brilliantly composed paintings that often appear as dreams or visions from the past, as in Black Cat, Blush Herring and Swan Upping, Loon Landing, two works completed this year.