Louise Howland King was born in San Francisco in 1865. She studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York where her husband (painter Kenyon Cox) was an instructor. They were married in 1891. Her husband had studied in the studios of Carolus-Duran and Gerome in Paris in the 1870s. Louise cox was known for her portraits of children and small decorative paintings. She exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and won a bronze medal, one of many awards and prizes she was to receive in her lifetime.