Katherine Levine Farrell was born in 1857 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a 19th Century American visual artist often known for etching, marine, landscape and genre painting, she graduated from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, where she had studied with Peter Moran and Stephen Ferris. From 1880 to 1887 she was a student of Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In the 1890s she married Theodore Farrell and her signature may appear as “Levin, Farrell” or “Levin-Farrell”. She also studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and at the Drexel Institute from 1903 to 1905. During her career she received additional instruction from a number of established artists including Emil Bisttram in Taos, New Mexico.

Early in her art training she had developed the talents of an accomplished etcher. Her works, both paintings and etchings, were exhibited in the Ladie’s Parlor of the Pennsylvania Building and in the Women’s Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. She had spent time in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she had studied with John Twachtman and Augustus Buhler. Farrell was also a founding member of the Plastic Club, and a member of the Philadelphia Print Club, Philadelphia Water Color Club, and a fellow of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Farrell exhibited extensively from the 1880s on the Plastic Club and the other scenes of which she was a part from. At the exposition an etching and a painting, both titled Five Pound Island, Gloucester, and an etching, Gloucester Wharf, were shown.

Farrell’s exhibition record is extensive. Her works were shown in Philadelphia at the School of Design for Women, the Academy of Fine Art and with The Society of Artists. She won the Drexel Prize for Watercolor in 1903-04 and Gimbel’s Philadelphia Women’s Achievement Competition prize in 1934. The artist also exhibited at the New England Mechanic’s Institute, the National Academy of Design, Brooklyn Art Association, Boston Art Club and with the New York Etching Club. Her works were shown with many groups and organizations and the Philadelphia Art Alliance held a solo exhibition of her work in 1938. Several works by the artist have been sold at auction, including: 'Sailboat off a Pier' sold at Eldred’s Auction and Appraisal Services 'Summer Market Auction' in 2014, ’Provincetown Harbor’ sold at Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth in 2013 and at James D. Julia Auctioneers, Fairfield in 2011 and 2010.

Farrell’s work also has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her artwork is a part of the important collections of the Pennsylvania State College Art Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Trenton Art Association and in Cape May, New Jersey. Farrell died in 1951.