MacLane studied under John Vanderpoel at the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1897; in Cincinnati under Frank Duveneck; and in New York around 1900 under William Merritt Chase. In 1904 she won first painting prize at the St. Louis Exposition. In 1905 she married the painter John Christen Johansen whom she met while at the Art Institute. Shortly after their marriage they spent two years in Europe and, upon their return to the United States, took studios in New York City. They spent summer painting in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 1912 MacLane and her husband became founding members of the National Association of Portrait Painters.
MacLane was a portraitist who specialized in painting women and children. Much of her work reflects the dark, dramatic realism of Duveneck's Munich style.
