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Pictorial Map/ United States/ Canada. CASS, Katherine "Kae" Dorn [Cleveland, Ohio: 1928] Untitled Manuscript of the Northeast & Midwest U. S. & Part of Canada. 26 ¾ x 21 inches. Watercolor & ink on poster board; excellent condition. Highly animated and well-executed biographical map chronicling the travels, activities, adventures and notable places in the young lives of the artist and her husband. The map’s numerous whimsical but deceptively well-executed illustrations convey the warmth and joir de vivre of the then 27-year old artist. An utterly charming cartouche surrounding a globe at upper right includes a portrait of the artist and her husband; to her left are artist’s materials and to his right are implements of his profession…dentistry. A note at bottom warm states the map records “Places warm to Harry,” the artist’s husbands, suggesting the map was made as a gift to him. Several illustrations cluster in the Cleveland area where the artist and her husband lived and received their education—she at the Cleveland School of Art and he at the Cass Western Reserve Dental School. Other personal details are in this area, such as “Pa’s Store.” Many of the map’s other illustrations evoke the 20s: a biplane off of Cape Cod, a wonderful golf vignette in New York State complete with a martini glass at the 19th hole, and cars, trains and ships of the period. The couple clearly loved the rugged outdoor life as recorded in the map’s many illustrations of camping, fishing and canoeing in Canada and northern New England. Katherine "Kae" Dorn Cass (1901-1971) was a gifted watercolorist who graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1919 and was awarded a scholarship to study for a year at the Academie Julien in Paris. She was a member of the faculty at the Cleveland School of Art from 1925 to 1961. She was a member of the National Association of Watercolor Artists, and exhibited her paintings regularly at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1926 to at least 1958. Her subjects include landscapes, flowers, portraits, and outdoor scenes with figures at work or enjoying recreation. Her work hung in the Corcoran and in shows in San Francisco and New York. She is considered an artist of the Cleveland School, a reference to the flourishing local arts community in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio from about 1910 to 1960. This name was coined in 1928 -- the same year this map was created -- by Elrick Davis, a journalist with the Cleveland Press. She was a past president of the Women's Art Club of Cleveland and a member of the Ohio Watercolor Society. She was also elected to the Pen Women of America and was in the first edition of Who's Who of American Women. She was a councilman in Mayfield Village in the late 1940's and an honorary fire fighter. "Kae Dorn Cass." Wolfs Gallery. wolfsgallery.com/artists/cass-kae-dorn (14 February 2024) Cleveland Institute of Art Newsletter, Spring-Summer 1971.
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