Painter and printmaker Mabel Catherine Robinson, later Mrs. Mabel Catherine Barnes, was born in Hackney, London, on March 5, 1875, the daughter of a medical supply inspector for the War Office. Her formal art education began at the Lambeth School of Art (now the City and Guilds of London Art School). She then studied at the Royal Academy from 1897 to 1902, under Sir Frank Short. In 1908, Robinson became the first woman elected Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. Her work was published in Fine Prints of the Year in 1923 and 1925, as well as in The Studio (1909) with an article on her etchings written by the critic and collector Georg Bröchner. Her work is represented in the collections of the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum and she exhibited at venues including the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers and Engravers, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Society of Women Artists.

Mabel Catherine Robinson Barnes, ARE died in 1953.
 

References: The Studio Magazine, no. 25 (1909): 38 (Century 69). A Century of Master Drawings, Watercolours, & Works in Egg Tempera. London: Peter Nahum, nd. Catalogue number 16. From the collection of Danish critic and author Georg Brochner (1874 - 1933).