Born in 1854 into a prominent and prosperous Fitchburg family, Elizabeth Norcross was well educated and versed in public service from early childhood. Her father, Amasa, was a lawyer who served as the first mayor of Fitchburg, a State Senator and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her mother, Susan, a schoolteacher.

Norcross attended Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College) and Boston’s Massachusetts Normal Art School (now the Massachusetts College of Art and Design), earning a teaching certificate in 1876. She taught art in Fitchburg for a year before relocating with her father to Washington, DC when he was elected to Congress.

At the age of 24 Norcross moved to New York City to study at the Art Students League under American Impressionist painter William Merritt Chase. It was Chase who encouraged her to move to Paris to continue her studies with Belgian painter Alfred Stevens. She remained in Paris for more than forty years, returning to Fitchburg during the summer months.

Norcross exhibited frequently and her work was featured at the Champ de Mars’ Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris as well as in Boston, Chicago, and New York. While her earliest paintings were portraits and still lives, in her later career she depicted mostly interior scenes of the collections of decorative arts in the Louvre Museum. Like the furniture, textiles, porcelain, and paintings, Norcross acquired, the paintings were created with the intent of sharing them with the citizens of Fitchburg.

Norcross passed away in Fitchburg in 1923 leaving $10,000 in her will for an art center, with the stipulation it be matched by the City to provide an endowment. Six years later, the Fitchburg Art Center, now the Fitchburg Art Museum, opened fulfilling her dream.

The Fitchburg Art Museum is closed to the public from September 8 through December 2, 2025, as the Museum prepares for their upcoming Centennial celebrations. FAM was incorporated on December 31, 1925, and opened to the public in October 1929. Beginning in 2026, FAM will celebrate their first 100 years with special exhibitions, programs, and events, continuing through 2029.