Born at Napanee, Ontario, she attended the University of Toronto in 1920 and then turned to the study of art. After four years of study at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, she graduated in 1924 and continued with post graduate studies in Paris, France, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére, 1924-5; the Parsons School of Design, New York, for a short time and then she studied wood-engraving under René Pottier before returning to Canada. In Toronto she took further study in engraving at the Ontario College of Art.
She began her annual trips to Europe in 1924 where she sketched in France and Italy and other countries until the summer of 1930, when she turned her attentions to the Canadian scene, first at the north shore of Lake Superior, and later in Charlevoix County, Quebec, where she built a log studio in the Laurentians and spent many summers there sketching and painting the habitants and Montagnais Indians at the Lac St. Jean District. Writing in the Saturday Night in 1937, Graham McInnes noted her work in still life and figure as follows: “. . . Daly extracts the dramatic significance by an insistence on certain salient features, and this gives her figures and still life – which lend themselves more readily to this treatment – a distinction that is sometimes lacking in her landscapes.” Although McInnes had given this mild criticism of her landscapes he later firmly placed her among the outstanding Canadian painters who had been influenced by the Group of Seven, in his book “Canadian Art”. This Group of Seven influence can be seen in her landscapes through the strong sense of rhythm of her mountains, sky, trees, roadways and other elements.
In 1929 she married George Pepper, prominent Canadian artist, and in 1934 they made their headquarters in the Studio Building where they were to live for the next 17 years. There too, was their friend A. Y. Jackson who had occupied one of the studios from the building’s completion in 1914. George and Kathleen Pepper travelled and painted together for many years, and held a number of joint exhibitions of their paintings and sketches taken from many regions of Canada and other countries. She made several trips to Labrador and Newfoundland to sketch the inhabitants. One of her lithographs done in 1951 of a Labrador Inuit was reproduced in Paul Duval’s “Canadian Drawings and Prints” and shows her skilful handling of this medium. Being a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and the Ontario Society of Artists greatly increased her exhibition activity. From her trips throughout Canada and abroad she made many figure and portrait studies of Inuit, Indians, fishermen at the Grand Banks, miners of Canmore, Alberta; and Spanish fishermen.
In 1962, her husband George Pepper passed away and in 1963, she returned to Quebec. She is represented in the Art Gallery of Ontario; Women’s Union, University of Toronto; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, N.B. and the National Gallery of Canada. She was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (1936); Canadian Group of Painters (1934); Royal Canadian Academy (ARCA 1937 RCA 1961). She lived in Toronto.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977
