Katherine Levin Farrell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 15, 1857. 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. 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 Ladies' 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. 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.