Mary Daisy Arnold

Mary Daisy Arnold spent 36 years quietly creating one of America’s most remarkable artistic legacies while remaining almost completely unknown herself. Born around 1873, she trained as an artist in New York City during the 1890s, then moved to Washington, D.C. in 1904 to join the Division of Pomology at the USDA. What followed was an extraordinary career that produced 1,060 precise watercolor paintings of American fruits and nuts.

Arnold began painting for the USDA collection in 1908 and continued until 1940, the longest tenure among any of the artists of the collection. Her subjects ranged from common apple varieties to exotic specimens like papayas and persimmons.

Beyond her primary illustration work, Arnold mounted and colored lantern slides for educational presentations. She also painted oil landscapes for personal enjoyment. Throughout her long tenure, she lived in the Washington, D.C. area.

Despite her prolific output, Arnold herself remains enigmatic. The destruction of federal personnel records from before 1921 erased most traces of her personal story. We don’t know if she married, had family, or what motivated her decades of dedication to botanical illustration. When she died on August 13, 1955, only brief notices appeared in local newspapers, providing no additional biographical details.