Breaking the mould:

Kathleen was a suffragette, who passionately believed in women’s emancipation, and can be seen to break the female domestic-artist mould by: -

• being one of the more enterprising British artists travelling to Europe to study and paint before the First World War (see Art Training)

• being fortunate and confident enough to travel further afield alone in 1908-10, and paint in remote places - the Rocky Mountains (see Teaching Art in Canada)

• painting en plein air, when many did not.

• seeking out renowned people that interested her to sit for portraits – such as Gandhi (see Commissions x 2)

• putting her artistic skill to the “service of the (suffrage) Cause” by executing quick portrait sketches for sale (see Politics)

• from 1899 to 1960, successfully painting commissions, regularly exhibiting at renowned institutions such as the Royal Academy and selling her paintings to eminent buyers such as the French Government, even though commercial activity was hard for female artists of the time (see Commissions, Exhibitions, and Sales).