This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  With a specialty in animal sculpture, especially young creatures, Gertrude Lathrop later turned this talent into a distinguished career as a medallic* animal portraitist. She was especially amused by Pekinese dogs, which she raised, and by the fact that she could find them beautiful even though they appeared homely.
In her sculpture, she emphasized decorative aspects such as the curl of feathers. Of this approach, she wrote: "I chose to model animals because of their infinite variety of form and texture and their great beauty, for even the lowliest of them have beauty,yes even the ward bug, with his magnificent tusks." (170)
Born in Albany, New York she was the sister of Dorothy Lathrop, author and illustrator of childrens' books. Growing up they worked together in a home studio, and later shared a studio in Connecticut.
She was a student at the Art Students League* in New York City, at Solon Borglum's School of American Sculpture, and with Charles Grafly. She was a fellow of the National Sculpture Society*, and one of the few early women elected members of the National Institute of Arts and Letters*.
Source:
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, American Women Sculptors
* For more in-depth
information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary
http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx
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Biography from Butler Institute of American Art:
| Gertrude Katherine Lathrop, daughter of Cyrus Clark and Ida (Pulis) Lathrop, was born at Albany, New York, where she has her home and studio. Her studio was shared with her sister, Dorothy Pulis Lathrop, who is a painter and writer and illustrator of children's books. Her mother was a painter of landscapes and still life.
Miss Lathrop studied at the Art Students League in 1918 with Solon Borglum and at his School of American Sculpture from 1920 to 1921. She also studied in the summer of 1925 with Charles Graffy at Gloucester.
Studies of animals, particularly young creatures have been her specialty, though her work includes many portrait busts and reliefs. She exhibited first in 1921 at the National Academy of Design, and in 1928 Sammy Houston won the Barnett Prize. Copies of this statuette were purchased for the public libraries of Albany and Houston, Texas, and placed in the children's rooms.
In 1931 Great White Heron was awarded the Speyer Prize. The next year it took the Crowinshield Prize at the Stockbridge Art Exhibition. The Anna Hyatt Huntington Prize of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors was awarded in 1939 to King Penguin. Pairs of this model have been used on gateposts at Locust Valley, Long Island, and Beverly, Massachusetts.
Miss Lathrop designed a flagpole as a World War Memorial for Albany in 1933, and two half dollars, one for Albany in 1936, commemorating the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of the charter, and one for New Rochelle in 1937, commemorating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the city in 1688.
| Source:
From a Brookgreen Gardens pamphlet "Sculpture by Gertrude Katherine
Lathrop" published by them in 1937.
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