Kate Bunce

Kate Elizabeth Bunce (Birmingham, 1856-1927) was an English painter and poet associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. She is best remembered for her decorative work for churches and for her role in the artistic life of late Victorian Birmingham.

The daughter of John Thackray Bunce, a patron of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and editor of the Birmingham Post, she was largely educated at home. In the 1880s she studied at the Birmingham School of Art, where she won prizes. She first exhibited with the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1874 and with the Royal Academy from 1887, and in 1888 she was elected an associate of the Birmingham society. Her earliest known work is The Sitting Room (1887), and in 1893 she was one of the artists invited to contribute murals to Birmingham Town Hall.

Her early style belonged to the Birmingham School, but she was increasingly influenced by Burne-Jones, Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, with strong figure drawing and a clear use of colour. Later she painted a series of decorative pieces for churches, often alongside metalwork by her sister Myra Bunce. Her reredos in St Alban's church, Bordesley, is notable for its many species of birds.

She exhibited across England between 1887 and 1912 in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. She lived all her life in Edgbaston and died unmarried. In 2015 a Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque was unveiled in her honour at St Alban's church.