Catharine Carter Critcher

Born September 13, 1868, in Westmoreland County, Va. Her father was judge John Critcher. Studied at Cooper Union, and at the Corcoran School of Art with Eliphalet Frazer Andrews. In Paris, 1904–9. Studied at the Julian Academy with Richard Miller and Charles Hoffbauer. Opened a school for American art students with Miller as instructor, 1905–9. Lived in Washington, D. C., 1909–64. Taught at the Corcoran School of Art, 1909–19. Opened and operated the Critcher School of Fine and Applied Arts, 1919–30s. Elected member of the Taos Society of Artists, 1924. Ran a summer school in University, Va., 1920s–30s. Died June 11, 1964, in Washington, D.C.

Andrew J. Cosentino and Henry H. Glassie The Capital Image: Painters in Washington, 1800–1915 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1983)

Catherine Critcher visited New Mexico for the first time in 1920. The people and the landscape thrilled her. “Taos is unlike any place God ever made,” she wrote, “and no place could be more conducive to work, there are models galore and no phones.” Four years after she arrived, Critcher became the only woman to join the Taos Society of Artists. She painted portraits and genre scenes that captured the ancient communal rituals of Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico.