Kate Edwards, 1877 – 1980

Katherine Flournoy Edwards was born on July 29, 1877 in Marshallville, Georgia, the daughter of Joseph Asbury Edwards, an esteemed judge of Macon County, and Emma Jane Miller, a public school teacher. She began painting at the age of eight (AskArt). After attending school in Marshallville, Edwards enrolled in Price's College for Women in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1903, she studied with Frederick Warren Freer at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she first began to work with white pastel (“Portraits in Light and Shadow [...]"). She then entered the studio of H. H. Osgood in Atlanta. Four of her pastels were exhibited at the Art Institute's “Twenty-Third Annual Exhibition of Water-Colors, Pastels and Miniatures by American Artists” in spring 1911:

• "Little Evelyn Lovett," lent by Mrs. W.C. Lovett
• "Elizabeth"
• "The Waiting Client"
• "Portrait of Mrs. Harris," lent by Mrs. M.H. Park

In 1911, she was selected by the National Gallery to execute the portrait of Judge Phillip Pendleton Barbour, part of a series of 19 portraits of statesmen for the U.S. Congress. In January 1912, she was commissioned by the Georgia State Capitol to execute a life-size portrait painting of the recently deceased Senator Alexander S. Clay. By studying his life and character in-depth from January to May, “she was able to give to the face an expression of character and individuality which has made the portrait very acceptable as a genuine likeness to the friends of the senator” (“Portrait of Senator Clay Painted by Georgia Girl”), some of whom claimed that her portrait surpassed the photographs from which it was inspired. The portrait was presented and hung at the Capitol. 

In 1916, she won first prize for a portrait of Miss Mertens of Chicago at the Southeastern Fair (“Miss Edwards' Work”).

Edwards appears to have been a resident at the Girls' Art Club in 1913, when she drew the portrait of Club director, Roselle Lathrop Shields. In Paris, Edwards studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and with painter Lucien Simon (Mayer), but there are no records of her other Parisian activities. In the early 1920s, she moved to England, where she painted the portraits of poet Walter de La Mare, award-winning English writer Rose Macauley, and novelist Arnold Bennett (cited in Martin 508).

She returned to Georgia at some point in 1921, and lived at 65 Broad Street in Atlanta. Her painting, “On the Veranda,” shown at the sixth annual exhibition of the Atlanta Art Association, was awarded the Inman prize for best painting (“Miss Kate Edwards Winner Of the Inman Art Prize.”). In an article for the Atlanta Constitution, S. Franklin Yeager, evoked Edwards’ work in glowing terms:

Miss Edwards is now finishing a portrait in oil colors at her studio and here the winter found her in a quaint, “homey,” tree-shaded house at 112 Juniper Street, where she exhibited photographs of some other paintings. “Out of Work,” a strong, splendidly handled study of a great, strong man sitting in dejection over his lack of labor. Portraits of her nephew, for whom she cherishes a strong attachment, of a slip of a young girl with locks of gold and the eyes of a frightened fawn, an old, darkey servant, a faithful retainer in her family, and quite a number of speaking likenesses of five big men, one a noted surgeon in Chicago […]."

In the same article, Yeager remarked that Edwards would travel to Taos, New Mexico in July and stay for the summer in “the mecca of artists from all over the world on account of the wealth of picture possibilities in the dress, habits, and the quaintly beautiful aboriginal dwellings of this once powerful tribe of Taos Indians.” He also stated that she would then go to New Orleans and Chicago, returning to Atlanta in late fall.

In January 1922, Edwards completed the portrait of Mrs. V.S. Rose Berry, chair of Fine Arts of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The Atlanta Constitution claimed that Berry specifically prolonged her stay in Atlanta so that she could sit for Edwards:

Her selection of Miss Edwards to make the picture is particularly gratifying to those who know Miss Edwards and the value of her work, since Mrs. Berry knows the work of portrait artists all over the country. She paid even higher tribute to Miss Edwards’ work in oils than in pastels (“White Pastel by Local Artist.”).

In Georgia, she also produced artwork for an advertising agency while continuing to paint and draw in her spare time. Edwards held an exhibit in 1925 of her “white paint drawings and paintings” in her studio at 35 East Fourth Street in Atlanta, drawing a large number of guests, many of whom had recently returned from Paris (“Miss Edwards’ Exhibition Draws Many Visitors”). In the late 1920s, she moved to another Atlanta studio at 1422 Peachtree Road (“Miss Kate Edwards Finishes Portraits”), but she also spent time on the West Coast where she “achieved wide recognition as a portrait painter in many of the cities of the western seaboard, including Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (“Miss Kate Edwards To Be Entertained During Visit Here”).

Edwards was especially known for her portraits of many prominent people in the South and around Chicago: sports figures, politicians, and socialites (Fairman 22; Mayer). By the age of 89, the "Grande Dame of southern portraitists" estimated she had completed a total of 544 likenesses: "[...] she remembers in detail each one, the set of the head, the look in the eyes" (cited in Martin 508). The Atlanta Magazine's "Town Talk" provided a brief summary of her life's work: 

Getting a portrait done by Miss Kate in her apartment is the thing to do in Atlanta, but neither in her youth nor in the fullness of her years was she a mere social dabbler in the arts. […] She came home to Georgia just in time for the crash of 1929. After doing advertising agency art work for awhile, she went back to painting portraits, and in 1967 after she was 89, she estimated that they totaled 544. […] Among those she remembers are the portraits she did of Bobby Jones, Judge Elbert Tuttle, Poet Walter de La Mare, General Blanton Winship when he was Governor of Puerto Rico, Dr. Robert Park, former English teacher at the University of Georgia, and an old depression derelict whose despair she immortalized and whose name she never knew. But it was the children's portraits – bearing what she calls "that special look of vulnerability of the young" that she particularly remembered (cited in Martin 508).

Edwards never married. Known to many as "Miss Kate," she was named Atlanta's Woman of the Year at the age of 94 in 1972. "The so-called 'Generation gap' simply does not exist between this amazing woman and myriad children, teen-agers and young adults who come to sit for her and seek her advice and wisdom, accumulated over eight decades" (cited in Martin 508). Edwards continued to paint well into her nineties. While she probably exhibited some of her work, there is only one source which references a solo exhibition of her drawings and paintings at the Augusta Art Club show (“Miss Kate Edwards to Exhibit Pictures”).

In addition to being an artist, Edwards was also a part-time writer, publishing short stories, articles, and poems in the Georgia Review, The New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 1971, when she was 93, friends persuaded her to publish her rhymes, which she compiled in Rhymes for a Good Time and Other Verses (Atlanta History Center):

I’ve been writing rhymes all my life [...] I love children and whenever a child needs help in good manners, I would write a rhyme about it. Then I would write several more to keep the child from noticing that one was pointed (“Good Times Rhymes [..]).

Her collection of papers at the Kenan Research Center contains several unpublished short stories, poems, and verses, as well as correspondence, newspaper clippings, diaries, awards, scrapbooks, guest books, and undated memoirs of her time in Chicago, London, and Paris.

Kate Edwards died on May 23, 1980, at the age of 103. Her body was willed to Emory University for medical research. Her portraits are held by the United States Capitol, the Georgia State Capitol, and the Georgia Institute for Technology. The Kate Flournoy Edwards Art Award was established by her family on the occasion of her 100th birthday and was given every year from 1978 – 2019 to an excellent graduating art student from the Fine Arts Department of the Lovett School, founded by Kate’s sister, Eva Edwards Lovett in Atlanta, Georgia in 1926.

Family friend Anne Wade Rittenberry paid tribute to Edwards’ lifelong commitment to beauty:

We all loved Kate for her extravagant personality that encompassed beauty all around. When she was a very old lady, over 100, and almost blind, we visited her in her small apartment in Atlanta. An abstract canvas was hung on an easel nearby. I complimented it, and Kate sighed and said, "I must express the beauty that I can still see." This telling remark has stayed with me through the years as I remember the wonderful and talented lady who always signed her letters “Your loving Kate” (AskArt).

Sources

• "Army Unveils Gen. Benning's Portrait in Oils." The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1940, p. 15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• "Atlanta Artist Paints Portrait Of Art Authority." The Atlanta Constitution, January 18, 1922, p. 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• "Atlanta Artist Will Paint Portrait of Dr. I. S. Hopkins. “The Atlanta Constitution, May 16, 1926, p. 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• "Atlantans Subjects for Talented Artist." The Atlanta Constitution, February 12, 1928, p. G7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• "Carolina Art Association Honors Miss Edwards." The Atlanta Constitution, May 3, 1925, p. B2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Catalog, Twenty-Third Annual Exhibition of Water-Colors, Pastels and Miniatures by American Artists, The Art Institute of Chicago, May 9 - June 7, 1911. Art Institute of Chicago.
• “Chip Robert, Rhodes Honored.” The Technique, Georgia Institute of Technology, February 26, 1943, p. 3. Google Books.
• Dooly, Isma. "Current Events from a Woman's Point of View." The Atlanta Constitution, December 17, 1916, p. E2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• "Dr. Brittain Receives Portrait of Dr. Hopkins." The Technique, Friday, October 22, 1926, p. 1. Google Books.
• "Dr. Picha to Speak Sunday at Pi Tau Sigma Banquet." The Technique, Friday, February 15, 1963, p. 4. Google Books.A Kate Edwards Finishes Portraits.” The Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1927, p. 12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Miss Kate Edwards Is Honored Guest at Lovely Party.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 5, 1929, p. 13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• “Miss Kate Edwards To Be Entertained During Visit Here.” The Atlanta Constitution, December 30, 1928, p. 4M. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• “Miss Kate Edwards to Exhibit Pictures.” The Atlanta Constitution, February 28, 1937, p. 2M. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Miss Kate Edwards Winner Of the Inman Art Prize.” The Atlanta Constitution, May 15, 1921, p. 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Myers, Susan. "Mrs. James Van Alan Shields, Beta Epsilon," The Key, vol. 32, no. 1, February 1915, p. 32-33. HathiTrust.
• “Philip Pendelton Harbour.” Painting by Kate Edwards, United States House of Representatives.
• “Portraits in Light and Shadow by a Georgia Girl.” The Atlanta Journal, June 11, 1916, p. 50. Newspapers.com.
• “Portrait of Aunt Helen.” Palmer Museum of Art.
• “Portrait of First President of Georgia Tech Presented to School at Impressive Exercises.” The Technique, October 22, 1926, p. 5. Google Books.
• “Portrait of Senator Clay Painted by Georgia Girl.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 16, 1912, p. 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• The Georgia Tech Alumnus, vol. 20, no. 5, May-June 1942. p. 85. Georgia Tech digital archives.
• “White Pastel by Local Artist.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1922, p. C4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• “Work of Atlanta Artist.” The Atlanta Constitution, September 30, 1917, B12, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
• Yeager, S. Franklin. "Kate Edwards to Paint Colorful Indian Scenes." The Atlanta Constitution, June 19, 1921, p. G2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.