Edna Boies Hopkins, a painter known for her Japanese-influenced color woodcuts, was born in 1872 in Hudson, Michigan of a well-to-do family. In 1895, she attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati in Ohio; and in 1899, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, studying with Arthur Wesley Dow the technique of Japanese woodblocks. She also studied with B.J.O. Nordfeldt in Provincetown.

Hopkins had married in 1890, but, tragically, her first husband died only two years later. While studying in Cincinnati, she had met James R. Hopkins, later to be a well-known portrait and figure painter, whom she married in 1904. She also became life-long friends with Maud Squire and Ethel Mars there.

Beginning in 1900, Hopkins taught art at the Veltin School for Girls in New York City. The Archives of American Art in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., have on file a scrapbook of Hopkins's lecture notes, her own design samples, and student exercises for a design class she taught there in 1902-1903. It also contains critiques of class work, poems, an introductory essay on Japanese prints, and clippings from a student newspaper entitled "The Owl", reviewing a lecture series delivered by art critic Royal Cortissoz during the school year. At the turn of the century, Hopkins was an important printmaker in the Provincetown, Massachusetts art colony, where she was a member of the Art Association, and a long-time exhibitor over the years. During a visit to Japan, she observed the techniques of printmakers there.

With her husband, Hopkins lived in Paris from 1905-1914 and again from 1920-1923. She was an active member in various art and print-making societies there, including the Societé des Artistes Decorateurs, Societé Internationale des Graveurs en Couleurs; Societé Internationale des Graveurs sur Bois, Societé du Salon Automne, and Societé Nationale des Beaux Arts. She lived in Cincinnati during World War I, while James Hopkins served as an artillery camouflage instructor.

Hopkins won a silver medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Exhibited:
Bibliotheque d'Art et Archaeologie, Paris, France
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin, Germany
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
Schumacher Gallery, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio
Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, Ohio
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England