Willie Betty Newman

Willie Betty Newman (1863-1935) was an American painter. Born on a plantation during the Civil War, she studied painting in Cincinnati, Ohio and Paris, France. She exhibited her paintings in Parisian salons in the 1890s. She established a studio in Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1900s, where she did portraits of prominent Tennesseans, including President James K. Polk.

Early life Willie Betty was born on January 21, 1863, on Maple Grove Plantation, later known as Betty Place, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Her father, Colonel William Francis Betty, served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865.

Betty was educated at the Soule College in Murfreesboro and the Greenwood Seminary in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Betty Newman became a painter in Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1900s. In 2002, an exhibition of her work was held at The Parthenon in Nashville's Centennial Park.