Clara Taggart MacChesney (sometimes McChesney) (1860/61-1928) was an American painter and writer known for her figurative painting, landscapes and “scenes and people of Holland.”[1]: 458 Born in Brownsville, California, her family moved to Oakland when she was young where her father, Joseph B. McChesney, was principal of Oakland High School.

[4] MacChesney exhibited watercolors at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and was awarded a medal for her work.

An article in The San Francisco Call announced that she had placed two paintings in the 1900 World's Exposition in Paris, and remarked that: "Both American and foreign artists have referred to Miss McChesney as 'America's foremost woman painter.'

[6] She also wrote and published pieces for New York art publications, “frequently on her lifelong friend Elizabeth Nourse.”[1]: 458 MacChesney lived in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in the 1920s.

Portraits her specialty and has turned the trick of feature work on both New York Times and Tribune.