Florence MacKubin was born in 1857 in Florence, Italy, while her parents, Charles Nicholas and Ellen Marietta (Fay) MacKubin, were spending a year abroad. Her father died in 1863, after which her mother returned to Europe with the children.
MacKubin studied drawing in Florence, Italy. She then studied at Les Ruches, a Protestant school at Fontainbleau under M. Lainé. In Munich she studied under Professor Herterich.
She studied under Louis Deschamps in oil and Julius Rolshoven in pastel, and Mlle.
Jeanne Devina in miniature painting in Paris.
She painted portraits of prominent people in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as several famous copies of portraits, and exhibited at the Paris Salon, the London Academy, and the National Academy, New New York The Board of Public Works of Maryland appointed her to make copies of portraits of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore and Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. Foreign the Board she also painted a copy of Warwick Castle"s famous Van Dyke portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom Maryland is named.
MacKubin made paintings of society women in England and in the United States cities of Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, and Saint Louis.
In 12 years she received commissions for 360 miniature portraits. The people whose portraits she painted include Joel Chandler Harris, Basil Gildersleeve, Mistress
Charles J. Bonaparte, Justice Horace Gray, Senator George F. Hoar, and Mistress Thomas F. Bayard. Her life-sized portrait of Cardinal Gibbons was exhibited in 1903 in Baltimore and in 1904 at the Saint Louis Exposition.
She exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and made portraits of the Marchioness of Bath, the Countess of Warwick and others in England.
She was vice president of the Baltimore Watercolor Club. MacKubin resided in Baltimore for most of her life and kept a studio and summer home in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick. She died February 2, 1918.
Richard H. Spencer of the Maryland Historical Society said of her:.
MacKubin was a member of the Maryland Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
