By Marjory J. Sente
In 1912 Kate Cory moved to Prescott and began the fourth stage of her life. She was 51 years old.
Born in 1861, Cory spent her childhood in Waukegan, Illinois. When she was 19, the family moved to Newark, New Jersey. From there it was an easy step to becoming involved in the New York art scene.
During her life’s second stage, Kory developed her skills as an artist. She studied photography and oil painting at Cooper Union and the Art Students League of New York City. She later taught at Cooper Union, and in 1901, became a life member of the Art Students League.
At a meeting of the Pen and Brush Club in 1905, she met dreamer Louis Akin, who talked of starting an artist colony on the Hopi mesas. The colony turned out to be one artist—Kate Cory. She intended to visit for a short time, but spent seven years living among the Hopi, recording their ways and capturing their images through photographs and paintings. Stage three of Cory’s life was from 1905 until 1912.
From 1912 until her death in 1958, Cory called Prescott home and brought a greater appreciation of fine art to her adopted community and state.
The year Cory moved to Prescott, recognition of her artistic talents rose rapidly when her painting, American Desert, was selected for the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. At the time, it was the largest exhibition of modern art in the United States and included the works of Hopper, Matisse, Munch, Van Gogh and many other well-known artists. American Desert received an honorable mention and sold for $150 (equal to about $4,800 today).
Cory was a member of the Monday Club’s Fine Arts Committee that sponsored exhibits at the group’s club house. An exhibit held February 1916 highlighted the Spanish works of Miss Ethel Coe, who was on the faculty of the Art Institute of Chicago. Cory’s canvasses depicting the Grand Canyon and other places throughout Arizona also were popular with viewers. The review in the February 16, 1916, Weekly Journal-Miner noted, “Taken as whole the exhibit earned for the art section of the Monday Club and those in charge of the management of the affair the thanks and commendation of a vastly appreciative public.”
Later the same year, she was instrumental in obtaining a loan of 27 works of art exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco for the Northern Arizona Fair (NAF) held in Prescott. She was a member of the Art Federation of America that sponsored the San Francisco show. This art collection was valued at $30,000, and Prescott was the only city in the Southwest to mount it.
Cory’s critique of the 1917 NAF exhibition in the October 24, 1917, Weekly Journal-Miner discussed in detail each of the paintings. She also advised readers, “Don’t fail to study the art exhibit at the fair. It is rare indeed that we have the opportunity of seeing examples of many of America’s finest painters.”
In 1922 a traveling exhibition from NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art highlighted the NAF. Included were two paintings, “Meditation” and “Woman Sewing”, by Mary Cassatt, the well-known female American Impressionist.
Cory’s influence extended beyond the local Monday Club, and in the 1920s, fine art exhibits were a feature at the annual conventions of the Arizona Federation of Women’s Clubs.
These are just a few examples of Cory’s early endeavors to bring an appreciation of fine art to the Grand Canyon State. The epitaph on her gravestone reads, “Kate Cory, Artist of Arizona, Hers was the joy of living.”
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1 The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests