Katherine “Kay” Swan Works (1904 – 1998)

Excavation, c. 1930, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 22 x 26 inches, literature: Achieving Recognition, American Fine Art Magazine, March/April, 2025, p. 74 (illustrated)

ON HOLD

Katherine “Kay” Swan Works was a painter, printmaker and muralist who worked in both California and New York. Born in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Works spent her childhood in Washington, DC., New Jersey, and Indiana where she was introduced to some of her first artistic influences from Japan and China. After graduating from high school, Works studied for four years at the Art Students League, taking sculpture classes with Leo Lentelli and drawing classes with George Bridgman. She then pursued painting courses with Thomas Hart Benton, Walt Kuhn, and John Carrol. Works received two scholarships from the League and was employed at the student cafeteria to help pay for her art instruction. She was also elected as the youngest member ever to serve on the League’s Board of Control, which was the student governing body. After leaving the League, Works assisted James Monroe Hewlett, another League instructor, on murals for the Willard Straight Memorial Hall at Cornell University and for the Bank of New York. While working on the later project, she met fellow artist Donald Works whom she later married. Together, they relocated to San Francisco where they shared a studio on Montgomery Street. In 1933, they moved to Marin County. Works showed with the San Francisco Art Association, Artists Equity Association, Marin Arts Guild, San Francisco Women Artists, Marin County Watercolor Society, East Bay Watercolor Society, and Marin Society of Artists, where she served as President of the organization. Her works were included in institutional exhibitions at the San Diego Art Museum and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, among other venues. In 1938, she was awarded a commission by the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts to paint a mural for the Woodland, California post office. Excavation is a rare early painting by Works, since from the mid-1930s through 1949, she produced few easel paintings, as she devoted the bulk of her time to raising her children. After 1949 she returned to a more active studio art practice and widely exhibited her works in Northern California. Works also painted a mural for the Children’s Ward of the Marin County Hospital. She is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.