Biography
Meet the Artist
Katherine Ace
Katherine Ace, Artist
Katherine Ace was born in Chicago in 1953, and fell in love with oil paint at the age of 10 at a summer children’s class at the Art Institute of Chicago. She began painting in oils regularly at the age of 14, and through high school had a small space in the basement of her home where she painted several hours a day. Ace went on to study art at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, graduating in 1975.
After college Ace had a series of art-related jobs started in New Orleans, Vermont and Boston and then moved west – copying Old Masters paintings, working as a potter, doing graphics work and serving as a quick sketch artist in New Orleans and casinos in Reno, NV and Lake Tahoe, CA. She worked extensively on illustrations for text books producing a series of 16 books for Rorke Publishing and 36 portraits of composers for Simon and Shuster’s World of Music. She also did many portrait commissions including the Founding Father of the Oakland Children’s Hospital and the founders of the Jelly Belly corporation.
In January 1990 Ace moved to Portland, Oregon where she has lived ever since, focusing on her own poetic paintings, which have been shown extensively across the country.
Ace has always worked in her home, be it in garages, basements, kitchens, 8’x10’ bedroom in a double wide mobile home which she lived in also. In 1999 she added onto her shop/garage to make a large, light and truly functional studio.
‘The Talking To’
(Face to Face series)
OIL ON CANVAS | 20″ x 16″. 2018