The Paintings of Jesse Arms
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 27, 1883, Jesse Hazel Arms was a painter, illustrator, printmaker, and muralist. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Danish-American portraitist John Johanson and spent the summers studying with marine painter Charles Woodbury at his summer art colony school in Oguinquit, Maine. Following a short trip to Europe in 1909, Arms returned to her hometown of Chicago, where she worked as an artist and interior decorator.
Jesse Arms moved in 1911 to New York City where she became a student of painter and interior designer Albert Herter. She obtained employment with his company Herter Looms, a tapestry-textile design and manufacturing firm in New York City, where she specialized
in tapestry cartoons until leaving the company in 1915. During her employment with Herter Looms, Arms assisted Albert Herter with his mural project for the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco and worked with Herter’s wife, still-life and portrait painter Adele Herter, as a private home decorator.
Returning to her hometown of Chicago in 1915, Jesse Arms married Dutch-born painter and etcher Cornelius Botke. Together, they worked on murals in Chicago for the Kellogg Company and for the University of Chicago’s Noyes Hall, the social hub of the campus. In 1916, Jesse Arms gave birth to their only child, William. By 1917, after multiple exhibitions, she had gained recognition for her work and had won many awards both in Chicago and southern California.
Following an initial visit in 1918 to California, Arms and her family relocated in 1919 to Carmel, California, where they became influential figures in the local art colony. The family eventually settled in 1927 on a ranch in Santa Paula, California, where Arms continued to paint and contributed to the 
managing of the ranch. A prolific exhibitor of her work and member of both the California Art Club and the California Watercolor Society, Jesse Arms Botke died on October 2, 1971 in Santa Paula, California.
Jesse Arms was a prominent figure of the California School of Impressionism and became known for her exotic and richly decorated bird studies. Her highly detailed work depicted birds set in each species’ natural settings with an abundance of flora. Arms typically used oil paints, but also worked in watercolors and gouache; the backgrounds in her work were frequently embellished with gold and silver leaf. Arms also portrayed other subjects including genre and desert landscapes, and Native American figures.
Among the prizes award to Jesse Arms’s work are the 1918 Cahn Prize and the 1926 Shaffer Prize, both from the Art Institute of Chicago, and the 1938 Carpenter Prize from the Chicago Society for Sanity in Art. Her work can be seen in the collections of the San Diego Museum, Municipal Gallery of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.