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 supplies inspector for the War Office. Her formal art education took place at the Lambeth School of Art (now the City and Guilds of London Art School) and then the Royal Academy from 1897 to 1902. There, she studied under Sir Frank Short. In 1908 Robinson would become the first woman to be elected Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Engravers and Etchers. 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 Brochner. Her work is held in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Despite a prolific output and her many successes in the British art world at the turn of the century, little information is readily available with regards to her life and work. 

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).