Katherine Sophie Dreier was an artist, writer, and collector associated with the Dada movement in New York. Early on, she manifested her dual interests in social issues and art. Her own painting was abstract with a spiritual emphasis, and she became a member of the Abstraction-Creation group. She had an extensive art collection of her own that she donated to Yale University in 1941.

She was born into a prominent Brooklyn family on 10 September 1877. Her parents were Dorothea Adelheid and John Caspar Theodor Dreier, both immigrants from Bremen, Germany. Katherine was the youngest of five children. Dreier's father, Theodore, had amassed a modest fortune in an iron importing business. Years later Kather...