Born on a plantation during the Civil War, she studied painting in Cincinnati, Ohio and Paris, France.

She established a studio in Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1900s, where she did portraits of prominent Tennesseans, including President James K. Polk.

[2][3] Her father, Colonel William Francis Betty, served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865.

[4] Betty was educated at the Soule College in Murfreesboro and the Greenwood Seminary in Lebanon, Tennessee.

[1][3] Betty Newman was the recipient of the Parthenon award from the Nashville Museum of Art.