She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and trained as an artist with William Rimmer at Cooper Union School of Design for Women in New York City, graduating in 1870.

[3] She studied at the Design School for Women at Cooper Union under William Rimmer, graduating in 1870 and creating a sculpture of Puck which won praise from the New York Evening Post.

1889 and 1890 found her showing at the Paris Salon, listing her teachers as Jean-Paul Laurens, Jacques Fernand Humbert, and Gaston Casimir Saint-Pierre.

By later in the 1890s she was living in New York City, creating work for reproduction by Louis Prang and illustrating books, including Through the Invisible by Paul Tyner.

[4] Pell died in Beacon, New York, a year after her sister, and was buried near the latter in an unmarked grave in the Fishkill Rural Cemetery.