Grace Fountain was born eight years after the California Gold rush in Yreka, California, thirty miles north of Mt. Shasta. As a young girl, she moved to nearby Ashland, Oregon. She didn't begin painting until age 24, but made it her life's work, establishing a studio in Portland. About forty of her paintings have been sold in recent years by one Portland auction house alone.

A year after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, she moved to Oakland at age 50, and remained there until 1942. During this period, she painted many natural locales, including the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, and Mt. Shasta.

Grace didn't let age become an obstacle. She painted huge canvases of grand natural sites, Crater Lake at age 70, the Grand Canyon at 74, and Mt. Shasta at 77. The Mt. Shasta painting is amazing, an oil canvas measuring six feet high by seven feet wide.