Isabella Hunner Parsons

Parsons was born in 1903 in Baltimore. Her education and art training included time at Wellesley College, Goucher College, and the Maryland Institute (now Maryland Institute College of Art), where she studied with Henry Roben, Charles Walther, and Jacques Maroger. She later took a course in poster art at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich, then established a freelance career in New York. She returned to Baltimore in 1930 and shifted her focus to portraiture and floral paintings.

In addition to the numerous portraits that Parsons completed for Johns Hopkins, her other commissions included a portrait of Alfred Blalock, located at the American College of Surgeons; and George A. Solter, Associate Judge, Supreme Bench of Baltimore City.

Parsons had familial connections to Johns Hopkins medical faculty: her father Guy L. Hunner was a gynecologist, and her husband John W. Parsons was an internist. In 1969, the Parsons’ daughter established the Dr. John W. and Isabella Hunner Parsons Scholarship Fund at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.