Ida Isabella Poteat

Poteat was born at Forest Home in Caswell County, North Carolina, near the community of Yanceyville.

She was a private pupil of William Merritt Chase, and also studied with Robert Henri, Charles Parsons, and Louis Mounier during her career.

[1] She turned the art department into one of the most highly regarded in the southern United States, modeling its curriculum on those of schools in New York, Philadelphia, and Paris.

[4] Among her pupils at Meredith was painter Francis Speight; others include Mary Tillery, Ethel Parrot Hughes, Lucy Sanders Hood, Mrs. Herbert Peele, Heslope Purefoy, Dorothy Horne Decker, and Effie Raye Calhoun Bateman Goff.

After her father's death her mother came to live with her; the two would frequently visit her brother William at Wake Forest University during his presidency.