[3] Born and raised in Manhattan, she traveled widely and is best known for the late work she made while staying in a summer home off the coast of Maine on Great Cranberry Island.

[7][note 1] Throughout the rest of the decade her paintings appeared frequently in shows held by nonprofit organizations, including Salons of America (1931, 1932, 1933), the Society of Independent Artists (1932, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1937), the College Art Association (traveling exhibitions in 1932 and 1933), the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors (annually, 1933 to 1939), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1934), and the New York Society of Women Artists (1935, 1936, 1938).

[20] Writing in the New York Sun, a critic wrote that the paintings were social documents that revealed life in the southern mountains in a way that was "vastly entertaining.

"[21] A critic for the New York Times noticed that Eisner showed more interest in the people she encountered than in the scenic environment in which they passed their lives and concluded that "she caught something of the characteristic bearing of the Southern mountaineer.

Late in life, a contemporary of Eisner's, Joseph Solman, said of the social realist style of the time: "We were all seeking the flat, and the exaggerated, and the expressionist in our own romantic, different ways.

"[19][note 3] The Sun's critic, who found her work to be on the whole "attractive," used the label "communist" as shorthand for Eisner's social realist style in her mountain paintings.

"[19] Howard Devree of the New York Times said the paintings showed increased strength and sureness and praised her use of warm reds in a generally low palette.

[26] After the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1940 she and a small group of like-minded artists quit the Congress to found an avowedly non-political organization called the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.

[27][28][note 4] In 1937 Eisner and her husband traveled to Mexico to help the Dewey Commission investigate charges leveled against Leon Trotsky by the Soviet government in the Moscow Trials of 1936–1937.

Eisner made a painting of commission members interviewing Trotsky in a house on the outskirts of Mexico City owned by Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

[34][35][36] This exhibition was photographed by her good friend, Walker Evans,[37] and can be found in the Dorothy Eisner papers collection at Beinecke Library, Yale University.

[6] Painting almost every day, towards the end of her life she also held solo exhibitions in New York City at the Ashby Gallery on Cornelia Street in 1980 and 1983.

She also helped found the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors when, in 1940, it split from the American Artists' Congress because of the latter's endorsement of the Russian invasion of Finland and implicit defense of Hitler's position.

[21][42] Others pointed out a muted palette and a tendency to drabness along with strong composition, ability to develop a subject freshly and spontaneously, and overall vigor and thoroughness.

[14][16][20][22] For example, a critic for the New York Sun said Eisner painted her subjects "roughly, but with a curious instinct for balance that makes the panels, as a whole, attractive.

"[19] Writing in the New York Times Howard Devree noted Eisner's skill in delineating subjects convincingly and praised her growing strength and sureness.

"[31] During this period she produced much work in regular visits to the American mountain states, particularly Livingston, Montana, and nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Writing in 2008 concerning a retrospective exhibition that showed these paintings, a critic said, "her subject matter is so seemingly mundane that the viewer is startled by her choice.

Born in Austria, he studied to be a chemist and after emigrating to the United States founded a business called Eisner-Mendelson Company that sold a malt extract and other health products.

After her marriage to Patrick Putnam she lived in the Ituri Rainforest within the Belgian Congo in a campsite adjacent to pygmies of the Mbuti people.

For eight years Anne Eisner Putnam operated a small collection of guest houses from which she rented out rooms to visitors so as to support her husband's work.

[47] Following Patrick's death in 1953 she returned to New York where she published a book, Madami: My Eight Years of Adventure with the Congo Pygmies, describing her experiences and celebrating the Mbuti culture which she deeply respected.

During the warm months of the year they frequently traveled to their country home in Woodstock, New York, and, after the children had grown they followed the example they had set and both became serious artists.

Chaired by the philosopher John Dewey, the commission aimed to provide Leon Trotsky with a fair hearing of the charges made against him in the Soviet show trials of 1936.