The Portland art world lost a visionary on April 17 with the p@ssing of Katherine Ace. Her age was given as 70. Ace’s daughter, Corinna Ace, posted on her mother’s Facebook page–
“I’m very sorry to have to share that after complications from rapid and aggressive metastatic bre@st cancer, Katherine p@ssed away peacefully in her sleep early today. “She wanted to send love and gratitude to all her friends and the arts community. Thank you all for your kindness and support.”
Ace was much admired in Portland for his music work and activism. To quote Bob Hicks of Oregon Arts Watch: “She was known, among other things, for her painterly evocations of scenes and characters from classic fairy tales and for her quiet yet determined advocacy for women in the art world.”
Katherine Ace entered our world in 1953. When she was ten, she took a summer program for kids at the Art Institute of Chicago and fell in love with oil painting. She spent hours in her basement painting when she was 14 years old.
Ace earned his degree from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1975. After that, she worked in several art-related fields throughout the United States (such as at casinos in Reno and Lake Tahoe and as a rapid sketch artist in New Orleans).
Similarly, Ace drew 36 pictures of composers for Simon and Shuster’s World of Music, a textbook he also illustrated. Among his other works are portraits of the Jelly Belly candy company’s founders and the founder of Oakland’s Children’s Hospital.
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- A Man Was Reportedly Stabbed to De@th in Southeast Portland.
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Although Ace’s art has been shown nationally and internationally, she made Portland her home and studio in 1990.
In a Facebook comment, Sandy Rowe, former editor of The Oregonian, wrote, “Katherine’s p@ssing is a huge loss to the Northwest art community and all of us who were fortunate to count Katherine as a friend. Katherine’s mind was one of the most alive, creative, and complex of anyone I know.”
