Katherine Bradford New York, USA, b. 1942

Katherine Bradford was born in 1942 in Houston and lives and works between Brooklyn (New York) and Brunswick (Maine).

Bradford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bryn Mawr College. During her early years in Maine, she became involved with the local artistic community and began painting. Despite opposition from her family—and already having three children—Bradford moved to New York to be closer to the art world and eventually enrolled at the State University of New York at Purchase (SUNY Purchase).

Bradford is known for her semi-abstract, color-saturated paintings, in which narratives featuring characters and settings illuminated with a theatrical intent can be discerned. Critics suggest that Bradford balances color, iconography, and narrative in her work, allowing viewers to explore multiple formal and metaphorical possibilities.

She has exhibited at the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Her work can also be found in public art collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection in Houston, and the Portland Art Museum, among others.