Katharine Umsted received her B.A. from the College of Charleston and her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, NYC in 1989. She divides her time between her Manhattan studio and upstate retreat in the artist mecca of Hudson Valley. Umsted recently received a prestigious Pollock Krasner Grant in 2018 and has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center.

As a full-time studio artist, Umsted has had exhibitions up and down the East Coast with Long View in the Art Kiosk being her first show on the West Coast. Her solo exhibition in 2016 in the respected Galerie Tanja Grunert located in the Chelsea Gallery District of Manhattan received much attention as well as her many other exhibitions in commercial and non-commercial venues.

Trained as a fine art painter, Umsted challenges the traditions of painting by breaking all of the rules with her adventurous and thought-provoking artwork. In addition to the tradition of painting on canvas, Umsted utilizes an array of materials to paint with and upon. She is not limited by the conventions of craft or Art Market and is why she was selected to create a new site-specific installation for Redwood City.