- Mary Brady was the first California woman artist to spend significant amounts of time in Giverny. She made three extended visits to the French village in the late 1880s and early 1890s. While there, she both painted and modeled for fellow American artist Theodore Robinson.
- After leaving Giverny, Brady set up her home and studio in Monterey, where she painted the area’s dramatic landscape in a loose style informed by her exposure to French Impressionism.
- Brady exhibited Sand Dunes in Monterey at the Society of American Artists in New York the year it was completed. A contemporary reviewer praised the painting, saying, “Miss Brady has achieved a distinct success. Her “Sand Dunes in California" are unmistakably under a Monterey sky... The canvas is so vital it makes the portraits and landscapes around it seem washed in watercolor or printed on paper.”
Mary Brady, Sand Dunes in Monterey, 1895; Oil on canvas; Crocker Art Museum, Melza and Ted Barr Collection, 2009.3