Bertha Fanning Taylor was born on July 30, 1883 in New York City. She was the daughter of Spencer A. Fanning and Mary A. Switt. In 1889, she moved to Spotswood, New Jersey after her mother's death. In 1896, she attended Hunter College in New York. Upon graduation, Mrs. Taylor studied under Bryson Burroughs at the Women's Art School of Cooper Union in New York City where she received a certificate in 1903. In 1908, Bertha Fanning married Norman Taylor who was Assistant Curator at the New York Botanical Gardens. The next year, Bertha Fanning Taylor and her husband went on a trip to the West Indies for botanical studies. In 1924, she went to Montpellier, France with her two daughters. From 1929-1933, Mrs. Taylor studied at L'Ecole du English-speaking groups at the Louvre and became assistant to the Art Editor in Paris for The American Herald. In this period, Mrs. Taylor exhibited many of her own works in major salons in Paris. In 1933, Mrs. Taylor visited her daughter frequently in Rome and visited major art centers of Italy. At the outbreak of World War II, she lived for two months in Rome, but returned to the United States and lived in Greenwich Village. Upon leaving New York in 1945, Mrs. Taylor came to Norfolk as Curator of the Sloane collection at the Heritage Foundation Museum. In 1948, she taught extension courses in art appreciation, art history, painting and drawing for the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary (presently Old Dominion University) until 1951. During this period Mrs. Taylor in 1950 began teaching classes in painting and drawing at the, Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, as well as classes at the YWCA until 1960. She then opened her own studio. In 1963, Mrs. Taylor was awarded the medal of the Order of the Palmes Academique by the French government for efforts in the founding of Salon Francais of the Women's Club in Norfolk, In 1966, Mrs. Taylor had a one person show at the Norfolk Museum of Arts of Sciences of graphic work, including drawings, etchings and wood block prints. Mrs. Taylor published two works. The first was in 1959 entitled Form and Feeling in-Painting and the second in 1968 entitled My Fifteen Years in France. From 1968 to 1977 Mrs. Taylor was very active in the Norfolk Women's Club and taught students on a personal basis. In 1977 Mrs. Taylor sustained a fall and stayed in the hospital for many weeks and then lived at the Medi-Center nursing home until her death on July 3, 1980. A long time friend of Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Benjamin F. Clymer of the Reference Department at Old Dominion University summarized Mrs. Taylor as, "Blue Blood, Blue Stocking, and True Blue with the brilliance of gold and the warmth of red."

Note written by Norman Taylor, Jr.