Katherine Pyle was encouraged and influenced her brother the illustrator Howard Pyle with whom she shared a studio on Franklin Street in Philadelphia. She received her formal art training at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and at the Drexel Institute of Technology in her brother's illustration class. She wrote and illustrated children's books, fairy tales, and stories based on mythology. To her credit are about thirty books as well as publications such as Atlantic Monthly, Ladies' Home Journal, Harper's Bazaar, and Child Life.