Katharine Jowett

From the collection of Nathanael and Elsa Engbäck, Swedish missionaries who lived in China from 1910 to 1930.

Katharine Alice Jowett, born Wheatley, (1883–1972) was a British artist, known for her cityscapes in Beijing during the first half of the 20th century. Alongside Bertha Lum and other expatriate European and American artists in Southeast Asia, she was active within the shin-hanga movement (新版画, lit. "new prints", "new woodblock prints"), which was an art movement in Japan during the Taishō and Shōwa periods during the 20th century. Jowett never studied art in Japan but seems to have learned from her European colleagues in China who had studied in Tokyo. She lived and worked in Beijing until 1945 when, after being imprisoned for two years, she returned home to Devon, United Kingdom.