Susan Abbott was born and spent her childhood in Takoma Park, Maryland, a Victorian suburb of Washington, DC. Abbott was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age by her artist father.

Abbott graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute, College of Art. She received an MFA from the Institute’s Hoffberger School of Painting, with the renowned abstract expressionist artist Grace Hartigan and realist master Israel Hershberg as her advisors. She studied intaglio printmaking as a post-graduate student with Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa.

Abbott has been working as a professional artist since that time, exhibiting her oils and watercolors in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Shelburne Museum, the Zillman Museum of Art, the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Her paintings and commissions are in many corporate and private
collections. She has been a recipient of Maryland Art Council Individual Artist Awards and Vermont Arts Council Creation Grants.

Articles and reviews about Susan Abbott’s paintings have appeared in many publications, including Art New England, Watercolor Artist, Museum and Arts Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, and The Washington Post. She writes a column on creativity for The Artist’s Magazine. 

In addition to her painting practice, Susan Abbott has been a visiting artist and taught painting workshops cross the U.S and internationally. She lives in Northern Vermont.