In Paris, she studied at the ateliers of Edouard Krug and François-Nicolas-Augustin Feyen-Perrin, where she developed her skill as a figure painter.
While living in Paris, Bannerman was one of the first North American artists to be influenced by Impressionism[2] and began to use a brighter colour palette and depict light while working en plein air, although she preferred a more academic approach in her brushwork.
[2] That year, she exhibited three works at the Royal Canadian Academy, one of which was purchased by the Marquis of Lorne, the governor general of Canada.
One of the works she submitted, Le Jardin d'hiver (The Conservatory), depicts a view of her cousin reading in the Joneses' family home in Halifax.
[2][5] In 1886, at age 31, she married Hamlet Bannerman, a London painter, in Halifax and that year they moved to Great Marlowe, England.