Katharine Kimball A.B.E. (17 April 1866 – 19 March 1949) was an American artist, illustrator, and

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

, who spent most of her later life in England. She is best known for her drawings and etchings of urban and rural landscapes in England and Europe. Many of her images were used to illustrate history and travel publications, such as ''Paris and Its Story'', by T. Okey, and ''The Story of Canterbury'', by G.R. Stirling Taylor.

Biography

Katharine Lyman Kimball was born in

Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire Fitzwilliam is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 2,351 at the 2020 census. Fitzwilliam is home to Rhododendron State Park, a grove of native rhododendrons that bloom in mid-July. History First granted a ...

the daughter of John Richardson Kimball and Catharine Otis Fulham. As a child Kimball's portrait was painted by George Fuller. Kimball spent some time in

Cook County, Illinois Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

and Boston, Massachusetts before studying at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

in New York under her cousin William J. Whittemore and then under

Frank Short Sir Francis Job "Frank" Short PPRE (19 June 1857 – 22 April 1945) was a British printmaker and teacher of printmaking. He revived the practices of mezzotint and pure aquatint, while expanding the expressive power of line in drypoint, etc ...

at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

in London. Her first solo exhibition was "A Catalogue of original pen and ink drawings of known and unknown places of interest by Katharine Kimball" in London at the Clifford Gallery in 1902. In 1909 she was elected an associate member of the

Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), known until 1991 as the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, is a leading art institution based in London, England. The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, as it was originally styled, was ...

. She lived in Bath from 1915 until her death. Near the end of her life made substantial gifts to the

Victoria Art Gallery The Victoria Art Gallery is a public art museum in Bath, Somerset, England. It was opened in 1900 to commemorate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. It is a Grade II* listed building and houses over 1,500 objects of art including a collection of ...

of works on paper from her own collection. She died at

St. James's Square St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was one of the three or fo ...

Nursing Home in Bath in 1949 after a short illness. Kimball donated works to the collections of a number of public art institutions, including: in 1909 and 1911 the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London, the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, in 1923 to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and in 1937 9 etchings to

The Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

. She was a member of the

Daughters of the American Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promote ...

and she and her sister donated a number of objects to their museum.

Career

Bibliography

Kimball was the author or illustrator of several books:
Henry B. Wheatley, ''The Story of London''
(London, 1904) * T. Okey, ''Paris and its Story'', (London, J.M. Dent, 1904) *

Ernest Gilliat-Smith Frederick Ernest Gilliat-Smith (1858–1935) was an English Catholic poet and author of historical non-fiction. Life Gilliat-Smith was born in Woodmansterne, Surrey, on 8 July 1858. He converted to Catholicism in 1879 and pursued a literary caree ...

, ''The Story of Bruxelles'', (London, J.M. Dent, 1906).Story of Brussels
at Internet Archive. * H. MacNaughton-Jones, ''The Thames'', (London, Kegan Paul, 1908) * Katharine Kimball, ''Rochester. A Sketchbook'', (London, A. & C. Black, 1912) * G. R. Stirling Taylor, ''The Story of Canterbury'', (London, J.M. Dent, 1912)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimball, Katharine 1866 births 1949 deaths 20th-century American women artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Artists from New Hampshire American illustrators National Academy of Design alumni