Jewish Scholar

Born in Philadelphia, Katherine M. Cohen was the fourth child of British Jewish immigrants who were well ensconced in Philadelphia’s Jewish elite. Cohen trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and had her own sculpting studio in Philadelphia from 1884 to 1887, which she closed to travel and study in Paris. At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she addressed the Women’s Pavilion with a call for emboldening American and female art, in her “Life of Artists” speech. In addition to her sculpture and watercolor paintings, she is best remembered for the illustrations to A Jewish Child’s Book (1894) and for creating the seal of Gratz College.