Katharine Bruce

Katharine Bruce was born in New York, New York, while her father, Canadian artist Robert Bruce, was studying at the Arts Students League in Manhattan. Her early exposure to art led to a strong childhood interest in visual arts. Her family moved to Winnipeg, where she spent her formative years. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba in 1974, where she took a drawing course from her father.

After graduation, Bruce worked as a potter in Seattle, Washington. In 1976, she became an art instructor and activities director at the Tenacre Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey. In the mid-1980s, she studied painting, drawing, and sculpture at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. Returning to Princeton in 1987, she became involved in handmade papermaking, teaching workshops and producing a 90-minute video on the subject. During this period, her art was shown in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Bruce moved back to Winnipeg in 1996, which initiated several solo and group exhibitions of her paintings and drawings. She became an active member of the co-op <SITE> Gallery in the historic Winnipeg Exchange district. Her work has been shown at venues including Winnipeg City Hall, Centennial Concert Hall, Main Access Gallery, Warehouse artworks, Gurevich fine art, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and SOUL Gallery. Her mural "Princess Street Reflective," a 4' x 11' drawing and mixed media work, was purchased by the City of Winnipeg in 2001 and hangs in the lobby of Winnipeg City Hall.

Bruce's work includes energetic abstract art, landscapes, collages, cityscapes, and figurative subjects. Her paintings have been featured on book covers, album covers, and in Manitoba government and corporate buildings. In 2012, she moved to an old farmhouse in Holmfield, Manitoba, and established a winter residence in Mexico that same year. In November 2013, she had a joint exhibition with her late father titled "Bruce and Bruce – Father and Daughter" at Soul Gallery in Winnipeg. Manitoba Artists in Health Care invited her to work in a public studio space at The Riverview Health Centre, where patients, visitors, and staff could watch her creative process.