Katharine Lane's father was a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and it was at that institution's school where she studied under Charles Grafly, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Brenda Putnam, and George Demetrios. Her interests quickly turned to animal sculpture, especially dogs and horses, and she began exhibiting works in that genre in 1924. Her portrait of a whippet, Narcisse Noir, won the Widener Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1927, and one of the stallion Lord Monstone won a medal from the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors the following year. On a larger scale, she executed a 400-foot-long frieze depicting various animals as well as a set of bronze doors for the Biological Laboratories at Harvard University.
Lane, who married F. Carrington Weems in 1947, began participating in the annual exhibitions at the National Academy in 1926 and continued to do so on a regular basis into the 1970s. Many of her best known animal sculptures were shown here. Among her many awards are those she won at the Academy: the 1931 Speyer Prize for Circus Horse (see below); the 1932 Barnett Prize for Narcisse Noir; and the 1963 Speyer Prize for Bee Sting.
Weems has been an active member of the National Sculpture Society, the Guild of Boston Artists, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
