Art UK
Katharine Cameron (26 February 1874 – 21 August 1965) was a Scottish flower and landscape painter, illustrator and an “accomplished ” etcher.[1] Born in Hillhead, Glasgow, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art between 1890 and 1893,[2] and continued her studies under Gustave Courtois and René-Xavier Prinet at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.[3]
During her time at the Glasgow School of Art, Katharine contributed illustrations for The Yellow BookShort-lived but influential quarterly illustrated magazine published in London from 1894 to 1897. and the student publication The Magazine.[4] While there she also became part of a group of artist friends known as “The Immortals”, which included the sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.[5]
Katharine’s style of painting, with its “bold outlines and vivid colours,” lent itself to book illustrations, and she contracted with London publishers T. C. and E. C. Jack in 1904 to provide art for books of fairytales.[6]
Katharine was a prominent member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists, and exhibited widely both at home and at the Royal Academy from 1912–1963.[1] Alongside her flower paintings, she often exhibited her landscapes, sketched during the regular visits she and her husband made to the Scottish Highlands.[7]
Personal life
Katharine married the art collector and connoisseur Arthur Kay in 1928.[8] After his death in 1939 she continued to paint and exhibit, but focused predominantly on her first love of flower painting.[2][7] Katharine died in Edinburgh on 21 August 1965.
