Kate Javen’s paintings in oil are stunning both for the breathtaking beauty of her brushstroke as well as for their passionate moral intensity. In a painting style that synthesizes an Old Masters clarity of light with a basis in American naturalism and realism, Javens connects with the viewer by an empathy to her subjects – paintings of animals which are named for, and in fact stand as metaphorical portraits of, figures in American history; persons who represent, to Javens, an altogether admirable altruism and social activism that deserve to be commemorated.

Kate Javens, a Missouri-born artist who has lived in Japan, Mexico, Philadelphia and New York, is a recipient both of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Painting Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts Disciplinary Winner in Painting, and is a three-time McDowell Fellow. Her works hang in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Palmer Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum.