Name/Title
Malabar Farm Illustration, Kate LordContext
Helen "Kate" Lord (nee Kalkman) was born in Baltimore County, Maryland. She attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. Upon completing a course in design in 1916, she moved to New York City to work as an artist and illustrator. She also found work as a fashion design teacher at the New York School of Design for Women.
Kate took a hiatus from her art, volunteering for the U. S. Army during the First World War. She supervised art instruction classes for wounded soldiers in France in this capacity. She returned to New York after the war but was soon offered a job with the Lazarus Department Store in Columbus, Ohio.
It was in Columbus that Kate Kalkman met Russell Lord. The couple were married in 1924 and returned to New York. Russell Lord worked briefly as a managing editor for New Yorker magazine. Kate did some freelance illustrating and continued her art studies.
In 1940, Russell Lord helped found the non-profit soil and water conservation organization "Friends of the Land." Louis Bromfield was an early member of Friends of the Land, eventually becoming president of the organization. Russell became editor and contributing author for The Land, the organization's quarterly journal. Kate Lord put her freelance work aside to illustrate for The Land. She also illustrated several books for her husband and two of Louis Bromfield's books, Pleasant Valley and Malabar Farm, in the 1940s. Lord also illustrated a re-print edition of Bromfield's 1933 autobiographical novel The Farm. Kate Lord died in 1960.
- Research and text by Thomas Bachelder of the Malabar Farm FoundationLocation
Building
The Big HouseOhio State Park
Malabar Farm State Park