This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Waukegan, Illinois, Kate Cory became one of the first resident women artists of Arizona. She is known for her paintings of Hopi Indians as well as desert landscapes.
In Waukegan, her father was an activist abolitionist newspaper editor and publisher, and she developed an early awareness of social issues. In 1879, she went to New York from Waukegan and studied at the Arts Students League and Cooper Union.
There in 1905 at a meeting of the Pen and Brush Club, she was introduced by Maude Banks, daughter of Civil War General Banks, to Louis Akin, just returned from living with and painting the Hopi Indians at Oraibi in Arizona. He told Kate he was considering establishing an artist's colony of writers, musicians and artists at the Hopi Reservation, and he encouraged her to go there. She decided this was a good time in her life to make a complete change because her parents had died, so she took the train to Arizona, sending her box of supplies ahead to Canyon Diablo.
However, Akin was not much of an organizer, and she became the "colony." From 1905 to 1912, she lived among the Hopis, first renting a house at Oraibi, and her life-long task became documenting their lives.
In 1912, she moved to Prescott and continued her dedication to painting, including views of the Grand Canyon. In 1913, her "Arizona Desert" painting was in the revolutionary New York Armory Show, which introduced modernism to American art.
During World War I, she lived on Long Island, New York doing a war-effort garden project and then returned to Prescott for the remainder of her life. Her work is in the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and the public museum in Prescott.
Sources:
Phil and Marion Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West
Fran Elliott, "A Grand Thing to Live With", Plateau Journal, Spring 2003, Vol. 7, Number 1, a publication of the Museum of Northern Arizona at Flagstaff. Fran Elliott, a long-time resident of Sedona, Arizona, is a collector of historic art of Arizona, especially subjects of 20th Century women in the Southwest.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Waukegan, IL on Feb. 8, 1861. Cory studied in NYC at the Cooper Union and ASL under Cox and Weir. Arriving in Arizona in 1905, she then spent seven years on a Hopi reservation. While in Los Angeles in 1908-09, she painted Indian genre. In 1911 she settled in Prescott, AZ where she remained unwed and led a spartan existence until her demise on June 12, 1958. Exh: Courvoisier Gallery (SF), 1908; Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909; Kanst Gallery (LA), 1909, 1912; Armory Show (NYC), 1913. In: Smithsonian Inst.; Univ. of Arizona; Prescott Museum; Tuzigott Museum (Clarkdale, AZ). | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
SF Call, 1-31-1908; Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); Women Artists of the American West; Who's Who in American Art 1936-47; Phoenix Gazette, 6-14-1958 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
Biography from Arizona Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts:
| Kate Cory was born February 8th, 1861 in Illinois. She studied at
the Art Students League in New York and Cooper Union. At the
behest of Louis Akin, she moved to Northern Arizona to study the Hopi
and was the only woman from Arizona to exhibit at the famous "1913
Armory Show" in New York City, where her painting, Arizona Desert was shown.
Interesting and versatile, Cory worked on airplane designs and
camouflage techniques, as well as photography of the Hopi Indians. Her
paintings are owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.,
Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, and the Arizona State Capitol Museum
in Phoenix, as well as the Sedona Arizona Historical Art Museum.
Kate Cory died in Prescott, Arizona in 1958.
Source:
Five Ladies of Prescott and their Art, by Phippen Museum of Arizona Art. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Kate Cory is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
New York Armory Show of 1913
Painters of Grand Canyon
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