Kate Clifton Osgood Holmes


Kate Clifton Osgood Holmes was an American painter and scientific illustrator.
She was one of five children born to James Blake Osgood and Cornelia Adams Upham.

Life

Born in Castine, Maine, to James Blake Osgood and Cornelia Adams Upham, Kate Clifton Osgood, moved with her family to Ellsworth by the age of two; some sources list Ellsworth as her birthplace, and indeed she herself gave it as such on a passport application in 1908. They moved again, to Washington, D.C., around 1862.
She studied at the Art Students League of New York, under William Merritt Chase. In 1883, she married Dr. William Henry Holmes. She studied in Europe for a year before returning to the United States; she taught decorative arts in local schools around Washington, including the Madeira School, for a number of years thereafter.
She lectured a great deal as well.
She was employed by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution from 1881 to 1883, and remained active with the Smithsonian for much of her career. Holmes died in Washington, D.C. One of her paintings, Summer, and a drawing of a priest are currently in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Books mentioning Kate Osgood Holmes include:
Dictionary of Women Artists. An international dictionary of women artists born before 1900. By Chris Petteys. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985.
Who Was Who in American Art. Compiled from the original thirty-four volumes of American Art Annual: Who's Who in Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947. Edited by Peter Hastings Falk. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
Woman's Who's Who of America. A biographical dictionary of contemporary women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. Edited by John William Leonard. New York: American Commonwealth Co., 1914.
Who Was Who in American Art. 400 years of artists in America. Second edition. Three volumes. Edited by Peter Hastings Falk. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999.
See also:
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/kate-clifton-osgood-holmes-2277
https://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Kate_Clifton_Osgood_Holmes/10025621/Kate_Clifton_Osgood_Holmes.aspx