Brought up in New York City, Bettina Steinke began winning prizes for her portraits in high school. She studied at the Fawcett Art Institute in Newark, New Jersey, and later at Cooper Union and the Phoenix Art Institute in New York. Her first big job was a series of 108 heads for the NBC Symphony Orchestra when she was 23. Later, her portrait subjects included Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur and Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek. Steinke moved to Taos, New Mexico, in 1955 and began the western phase of her career.

Hall of Fame of American Portrait Painting