Katharine Carl

Katharine Augusta Carl (February 12, 1865 – December 7, 1938) (sometimes spelled Katherine Carl) was an American portrait painter and author. She made paintings of notable and royal people in the United States, Europe and Asia. She spent nine months in China in 1903 painting a portrait of the Empress Dowager Cixi for the St. Louis Exposition. On her return to America, she published a book about her experience, titled With the Empress Dowager of China.

Early life

Katharine Augusta Carl was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 12, 1865,¹ the daughter of Francis Augustus Carl, Ph.D., LL.D. and Mary Breadon Carl.² She had a brother named Francis A. Carl.³

Education

Carl graduated with a Master of Arts from the Tennessee State Female College in 1882. She studied art under Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois and William-Adolphe Bouguereau in Paris, and then exhibited her works in the Paris salons.²⁴

Career

Overview

Carl painted portraits, including those made in 1892 of Mahomet Ali and Prince El Hadj in Algiers.² She made portraits of Paul S. Reinsch and Sir Richard Dame.⁵

Throughout her career, she traveled and painted in Europe and China many times.⁴ Carl her work at the and at the 1893 in Chicago, Illinois. In London, she was a member of the Lyceum Club and the International Society of Women Painters. She was a member of the of Paris, the International Jury of Fine Arts, and the International Jury of Applied Arts of the .