Kathleen Kolb earned a BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design and has been painting in Vermont for the past 23 years. She has exhibited consistently since 1981 around New England (including The Wood Art Gallery, The Helen Day Art Center, University of Southern Maine, The Sheldon Museum, RISD, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Clarke Galleries, Francesca Anderson, Beth Urdang, etc.), and since 1996 in New York City. Her large watercolor, "Bristol Sawmill" won a Paton Prize for watercolor at the National Academy in New York in 1998. In 1999 one of her paintings was included in John Driscoll's book, "The Artist and the American Landscape".

Kolb's work is defined by qualities of light and their action in the landscape, and by her deep attachment to Vermont. She paints in the realist tradition, in both watercolor and oil, occasionally doing work in charcoal or pastel as well. Her paintings have been used for various book jackets and magazine articles. Since 1990 she has taught painting and drawing at The Governor's Institute on the Arts in Vermont.