Catherine Read

Life & Legacy

Catherine Read (or Katherine; 3 February 1723 - 15 December 1778) was a Scottish artist. Born in the early 18th century, she is most known for her work as a portrait-painter. She was for some years a fashionable artist in London, working in oils, crayons, and miniature. From 1760 she exhibited almost annually with either the Incorporated Society of Artists, the Free Society of Artist, or the Royal Academy, sending chiefly portraits of ladies and children of the aristocracy, which she painted with much grace and refinement.