Portraying the blacks in calm, friendly and dignified images of non-threatening African-American and struggling for their civil rights through her art, the African-American painter and educator, Laura Wheeler Waring, is best remembered for her educational work and the portraits which displayed the achievement and dignity of her people.

Celebrated as an artist of consummate skill and imagination, Wheeler was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 16, 1887 in a prominent family of New England.