1. Kate Cory was an American photographer and artist.
30 Facts About Kate Cory
1. 2.
Kate Cory studied art in New York, and then worked as commercial artist.
3.
Kate Cory traveled to the southwestern United States in 1905 and lived among the Hopi for several years, recording their lives in about 600 photographs.
4.
Kate Thompson Cory was born in Waukegan, Illinois, on February 8,1861.
5.
Kate Cory's parents were James Young Cory, born in Canada, and Eliza P Kellogg Cory, born in Maine.
6.
Kate Cory was related to Fanny Cory, a book illustrator and cartoonist with works such as the Little Miss Muffet comic book.
7.
Kate Cory studied oil painting and photography at Cooper Union and Art Students League of New York She was an instructor at Cooper Union.
8.
Kate Cory made her living as a commercial artist, contributing drawings to Recreation magazine and was involved with New York's Pen and Brush Club.
9.
At the Pen and Brush Club, Kate Cory met artist Louis Akin, who had just returned from the Southwest.
10.
Kate Cory had made paintings of the Hopi Indians to promote tourism along the Santa Fe Railroad route.
11.
Kate Cory intended to visit the Hopi mesas where Akin intended to establish an artist colony for a couple of months of a tour of the western United States.
12.
Except for periods in Canada and California, from 1905 to 1912 Kate Cory lived among the Hopi at Oraibi and Walpi.
13.
Kate Cory was the only white woman brought into the secret life and practices of the Hopis.
14.
Kate Cory learned the Hopi language, wrote about Hopi grammar, and mediated a disturbance.
15.
Kate Cory took about 600 photographs, recording virtually all aspects of Hopi life, social as well as sacred.
16.
Kate Cory took posed portraits, photographs of ceremonies and images of individuals, "which suggest a warm and spontaneous relationship".
17.
Kate Cory's pictures depicted a traditional Hopi way of life on the precipice of having to assimilate or adapt to modern white America.
18.
Kate Cory left the Hopi villages in 1912 and her viewpoints on life changed as a result of her relationships with the Hopi people, including eschewing modern consumerism.
19.
Kate Cory was not the first to photograph the Hopi; however, due to her intimacy with the culture, she was able to capture a more personal view than earlier photographers.
20.
In 1915 the Smithsonian Institution bought 25 of the paintings Kate Cory made during the time that she lived with the Hopis.
21.
Kate Cory moved to Prescott, Arizona, in 1913 and lived in a stone house built and furnished by Hopi workers.
22.
Kate Cory exhibited a painting, Arizona Desert, at the Armory Show of 1913 which sold for $150, and received an honorable mention at the show.
23.
Kate Cory painted her largest paintings for display in the Smoki Museum, where they still hang.
24.
Kate Cory was frugal, but gave away two cabins she owned to renters.
25.
Kate Cory removed debris from rain water and used it to develop photographs.
26.
Kate Cory's paintings are in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Sharlot Hall Museum, and the Smoki Museum of American Indian Art and Culture in Prescott.
27.
Kate Cory's work is owned by the First Congregationalist Church, where Cory was a member.
28.
Kate Cory died in Prescott on June 12,1958, at the Arizona Pioneers' Home and was buried at the Pioneers' Home Cemetery near her friend Sharlot Hall.
29.
The negatives for the photographs that Kate Cory took between 1905 and 1912 were found in the 1980s in a cardboard box along with other materials donated to the Smoki Museum.
30.
Kate Cory's papers are held by the Sharlot Hall Museum.