Born in Waukegan, Illinois, Kate Cory became one of the first resident women artists of Arizona. She is known for her paintings of Hopi Indians as well as desert landscapes.

In Waukegan, her father was an activist abolitionist newspaper editor and publisher, and she developed an early awareness of social issues. In 1879, she went to New York from Waukegan and studied at the Arts Students League and Cooper Union.

There in 1905 at a meeting of the Pen and Brush Club, she was introduced by Maude Banks, daughter of Civil War General Banks, to Louis Akin, just returned from living with and painting the Hopi Indians at Oraibi in Arizona. He told Kate he was considering establishing an artist's colony of writers, musicians and artis...