Anna Belle Crocker: Artist and Director of the Portland Art Museum

Anna Belle Crocker
Self Portrait

ca. 1926

Oil on panel

Portland Art Museum

While the first non-native, professional artists were men who arrived in the Pacific Northwest to accompany geographic surveys such as the United States Exploring Expedition of 1842, female artists put down roots and settled. They taught art classes, started art clubs and established a number of the art institutions that are still an integral part of the cultural community of Portland and the region.

Art practice and education were two of the few professions deemed appropriate and were available to women before World War II and, as a result, women generally outnumbered men in those fields. According to Jack Cleaver, curator of collections at the Oregon Historical Society, women had a "tremendous impact..." on the early development of the Oregon art community in three specific areas: "They dominated art exhibits at the Oregon State Fair, various Portland fairs, and county fairs during the nineteenth century. Also during that period, art teachers in Oregon were nearly all female, and, with the exception of the Portland Art Club, women were well represented in early art organizations. 

Anna Belle Crocker (1898-1961) was an artist who worked as both a portraitist and genre painter, that is a painter of scenes of everyday life. Crocker was director of the Portland Art Museum and principal of its art school, which is now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, from the years 1909 until 1936. At that point, courses in museum administration and connoisseurship were nonexistent, so Crocker educated herself by spending time at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, followed by a five-month tour of museums and galleries in England, France, Italy and Greece, where she conducted interviews and studied hundreds of works of art.    

During her lengthy tenure at the Portland Art Museum, Crocker not only continued an ambitious exhibition schedule, she expanded the museum’s permanent collections and helped to oversee the design and construction of the Ayer wing of the present museum building. “In the 110-year history of the Portland Art Museum,” observes art historian Prudence F. Roberts, “few people have exerted as much quiet influence as Anna B. Crocker.” In addition, she founded the docent program which supported her quest to make the museum an educational experience by training knowledgeable tour guides for school visits and for the general public.



Anna Belle Crocker
Leta M. Kennedy

ca. 1917-1918

Oil on board

Portland Art Museum

A dedicated artist, Crocker continued to study and was a member of the Portland Sketch Club in which she specialized in portraits and still-lifes. On at least two occasions, in 1904 and 1908, Crocker took time off from her job to study at the Art Students League in New York with Frank Vincent DuMond, whom she had met in Portland, and with Arthur Wesley Dow, whose theories influenced the work of artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase
ca. 1912
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Crocker sought out and exhibited original works by both local and regional artists, and established ties with other institutions willing to share their collections of European and American prints and paintings. One of her most notable successes was to arrange the loan of Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), the most controversial painting of the 1913 Armory Show held in New York. Duchamp’s painting was exhibited in Portland later that year, along with works on paper by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and other members of the European and American avant-garde. In her memoirs, Crocker compared seeing the “new” art for the first time to a “ray of daylight let into a shaded room.”    
When Anna Belle Crocker retired in 1936, she had spent 27 years at the helm of the museum and its school. Crocker was praised for her “intellectual integrity, her constant and courageous pressure to attain her ideas, her religious devotion to art, and her ability to use small facilities for great ends.”   

Anna Belle Crocker
Ruth and Jean Reed
ca. 1920
Watercolor on Paper
Portland Art Museum

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Sources
Women City Builders, Honoring Women's Civic Contributions to Portland, Sandra Hoff, 2003, http://wcb.ws.pdx.edu/?p=105, retrieved May 28, 2014.
Portland Art Museum, Online Collections, Anna Belle Crocker, http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=anna%20belle%20crocker#, retrieved May 28, 2014.
Independent Spirits, Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, Patricia Trenton, ed., University of California Press, 1995, p 107-108.
The Oregon Encyclopedia, a Project of the Oregon Historical Society, http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/portland_art_association/#.U4Tew6Pn_cs

Elizabeth Ayer: Pioneer Seattle Architect

Elizabeth Ayer
ca. 1939
Courtesy University of Washington,
Special Collections

On this journey to bring to your attention the hundreds of female artists that have been largely forgotten, or never known by most people, I do not want to neglect the architects. Elizabeth Ayer is an important woman of whom you should be aware.
Ayer's family arrived in the Washington Territory in 1852-among the earliest Anglo settlers. Her father was a lawyer and judge, her mother, an artist. Her interest in mathematics and art led Elizabeth to pursue architecture at the University of Washington, where she became the first female graduate of the University's architecture program. She received her degree in 1921, and in 1930 became the first female architect registered within the state of Washington. In the residential area, Ayer was instrumental in the synthesis of traditional Colonial forms such as double hung sash windows and a classically detailed cornice, with an irregular, boxy composition.

While Ayer’s career is linked primarily with architect Edwin J. Ivey, she worked for Andrew Willetzen in Seattle, for the architectural firm of Cross & Cross, and for Grosvenor Atterbury in New York. In addition, Ayer was interested in European architecture and twice during the 1920s, she spent a year abroad to tour and to study.

In 1927, Elizabeth Ayer began to collaborate with Ivey on a number of high profile commissions for Seattle’s social  and economic elite. Ivey provided Ayer with critical support and the guidance that would shape her approach to domestic architecture. In 1924, she was principal architect for at least one residence built in The Highlands (a gated community on Puget Sound) for C. W. Stimson. The design for these homes was traditional, predominantly Colonial Revival (with features such as the aforementioned double hung sash windows). The Langdon C. Henry residence (1927-1928), located in The Highlands, is a textbook example of the revivalist aesthetics driving domestic architectural design in the 1920s, especially in the more exclusive neighborhoods.



Langdon C. Henry residence,
The Highlands, ca. 1927-28.Courtesy University of Washington,
Special Collections

Ayer continued to employ her trademark period revival facades.  However, rear elevations and the interior spaces of her projects had a recognizable modernist flavor and often featured expanses of glass, modern materials and open floor plans.  Notable projects include the Davis House (1950) on Mercer Island; the Douds House (1951), which was featured in the book, Practical Houses for Contemporary Living; the Linden House (1962) on Bainbridge Island; and the Forland House (1963) in Seattle.

Robert F. Linden residence
Ayer and Lamping,
Bainbridge Island, 1962Courtesy University of Washington,
 Special Collections

William E. Forland residence,
Ayer and Lamping
Seattle, 1961-63,
Courtesy Shaping Seattle Architecture, Ochsner

In 1940, Ivey was killed in an automobile accident. After his death, Ayer took over the firm with Roland Lamping, another employee and graduate of the University of Washington. They continued the practice, but abandoned large-scale residential designs in favor of smaller residential and commercial projects. In 1942, they suspended the practice for the duration of World War II and Ayer worked as an Architect in the U.S. Engineers Office. She restarted the practice after 1945. Some time during the 1950s, the firm name was changed to Ayer & Lamping.
Elizabeth Ayer retired in 1970 after fifty years of successful architectural practice. She moved to Lacey, Washington, where she served on the Planning Commission through 1980. Ayer died in Lacey in 1987.

Elizabeth Ayer Hawthorne K. Dent residence, Seattle, Washingto, Architectural Drawing-West elevation and window details ca. 1936

Elizabeth Ayer

Hawthorne K. Dent residence, Seattle, Washingto,

Architectural Drawing-West elevation and window details

ca. 1936

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Sources
1. HistoryLink.org, The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, Ayer, Elizabeth (1897-1987), Architect, http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=1721, retrieved May 19, 2014.
2. Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation, Elizabeth Ayer (1897-1987),  http://www.dahp.wa.gov/learn-and-research/architect-biographies/elizabeth-ayer, retrieved May 19, 2014.
3. University Libraries, University of Washington Digital Collections, http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/ac/id/1198/rec/4, retrieved May 19, 2014.



Helen Hyde: American Artist, Asian Identity

Helen Hyde
1868-1919

Helen Hyde embodies the art movement known as japonism: the artistic, historic, and ethnographic study of Japanese art. Hyde was raised in San Francisco and began her art education with artist-teachers in The City. As a child, she was exposed to Asian culture there and copied the beautiful and delicate Japanese prints. Hyde joined the Sketch Club and was a developing watercolorist while she studied at the California School of Design. Helen also spent time honing her craft in New York, at the Art Students League from 1888 until 1889, after which she traveled to Berlin and Paris to continue her art studies. Felix Regamey, one of Hyde's French instructors, was instrumental in exposing her to Asian art through his extensive Japanese art and artifact collection and, under his tutelage, she became part of the japonism movement.

While she lived and studied in Paris, Hyde most likely saw the 1893 exhibition of Mary Cassatt's color etchings which were inspired by the Japanese use of color, content, and perspective. By 1894, Hyde had returned to California and began to sketch likenesses of women and children in San Francisco's Chinatown. Through the Sketch Club, Hyde met, and became friends with another artist, Josephene Hyde (no relation) who was an etcher. Together they attempted color etchings, and in 1899, the two women settled in Japan to learn that country's painting techniques.

Helen Hyde
Baby Talk
 ca.1908.
Color woodcut
11 3/8 x 18 1/4 inches.

Josephene returned to America, while Helen spent the next fifteen years working in her Tokyo studio situated in an old temple. In Japan, Hyde learned the Japanese woodblock printing techniques from masters such as Emil Orlik, a European artist living in Japan. Hyde lived in Japan from 1903 through 1913 and refined color woodblock printing to a fine art.


Helen Hyde
An April Evening
ca.1910
Color woodcut
3 5/8 x 4 7/8 inches

Hyde studied for two years with the last of the Kano school artists, Kano Tomanobu, and learned the Japanese style of painting. She became skilled at the creation of woodblock prints and was invited to execute a kakemono, is a Japanese scroll painting mounted usually with silk fabric edges on a flexible backing, at an annual spring exhibition in Tokyo.



Helen Hyde
Going to the Fair
ca.1910
Color woodcut
7 3/4 x 19 inches

Because of the extensive collection of letters and prints saved by both Hyde and her relatives, an examination of her life provides a window into the experiences of an American woman who selected her subject matter and was faithful to the development and representation of her subject and style. Her women-centered artwork was filled with figures who were mothers or workers. She did not explore the prevailing Japanese women depicted by many male artists during the latter nineteenth century: the Geisha.

Hyde belonged to the Tokyo Woman's Club, at the time, however, the club did not admit Japanese women to membership. Japanese women were slowly gaining public recognition and acceptance to the Tokyo Art Institute. Hyde makes no mention of Japanese women artists or friends in her letter to her family. Hyde created a charming, pre-industrial world in her prints and preferred the traditional Japanese dress to the increasing popularity of Western clothing the was worn by many.



Helen Hyde
New Year's Day in Tokyo
ca.1914
Color woodcut
3/8 x 17 5/8 inches

Helen Hyde produced seventy-one color woodcut designs during her time in Japan which resulted in as many as 16,000 prints. She was a respected member of the art community and worked with a number of well-known and well-regarded artists and craftsmen there. Thanks to the care of her personal effects and artwork by her family, Hyde's prints are found in museums and her letters and printmaking tools are preserved in the California Historical Society.

Helen Hyde
The Furious Dragon
ca.1914
Color woodcut
 5 7/8 x 6 1/2 inches

Helen Hyde had been battling cancer for several years and by 1914, she became discouraged because she tired so easily and found it difficult to work. She returned home to the United States and died five years later. in Pasadena, California. 
 
Hyde's popularity has enjoyed a resurgence. Her prints are still sold at public galleries, and a vast collection of her works are included in the archives of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Hyde's works can be seen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C as well. Two of her award-winning works are A Monarch of Japan and Baby Talk. In 1901, A Monarch of Japan took first place in the Nihon Kaiga Kyokai exhibition and the piece is now located at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 1909, Baby Talk received a Gold Medal at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition and it is now housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.      

__________________________________________
Sources
Conrad Graeber, Fine Art: Helen Hyde, http://www.conradgraeber.com/Hyde.html, retrieved 5/714.
Yesterday and Tomorrow: California Women Artists, edited by Sylvia Moore, Midmarch Arts Press, New York, 1989, 93.
Women Artists of the American West, edited by Susan Ressler, McFarland and Company, Inc., 2003, 245-246.
Women Artists of the American West, Helen Hyde Printmaker, Joan M. Jenson, http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/jensen/hyde.html, 1998, retrieved 5/8/14.
Artelino, Japanese Prints, Helen Hyde, http://www.artelino.com/articles/helen-hyde.asp, retrieved 5/8/14.

Emma Belle Freeman: Early Photographer of Native Ameicans

Emma Belle Richart Freeman
1880-1928
Self-Portrait
ca. 1913
Eureka, California

Living in northern California in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, Emma B. Freeman existed under a dual handicap - she was both a strong woman and an artist. Her success and recognition were even more significant when we consider the prevalence of male-domination over women in society during that time, and the general attitude that women belonged strictly in the home. Artists working in the remote area miles north of San Francisco, even artwork created by men, were largely ignored by the outside world. These factors may account for Emma's relative obscurity to this day.

Born in Nebraska,  Emma lived on a farm with her parents until she moved to Denver as a young adult, where she found work as a ribbon clerk. There, she met and married Edwin Freeman in 1902, and couple relocated to San Francisco where they opened a stationery and art supplies store in the heart of the city. During their time in San Francisco, Freeman studied painting with renowned Northern California artist Giuseppe Cadenasso. Unfortunately, like so many others, the store was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, and the Freemans chose to relocate to Eureka, a remote region 275 miles north of San Francisco.The couple opened the Freeman Art Company which specialized in art supplies and a variety of other items. By 1910, they were also involved in commercial photography.

Freeman was a free spirit with an independent voice and vibrant character. Between 1910 and 1920 she produced her Northern California series of Indian portraits. Freeman often intermixed native costume - such as Yurok dance regalia and Navajo blankets - to create romantically conceived ideals of the "Noble" Indian. She frequently hand-colored her photographs and added allegorical details to enhance her compositions. Though sometimes shunned for her Bohemian lifestyle, Freeman did much to improve public sympathy for the Native American in Northern California. In 1915, for example, her principal model, Bertha Thompson (Princess Ah-Tra-Ah-Saun), was selected to head the parade at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, which was held in San Francisco. Her romanticized photographs and the influence of Pictorialism, idealized the Native Americans and thrust them into heroic roles. Ultimately her art and her strength lay in the manner in which she combined the best elements of both. Without wealth and the status it provided, Freeman had to negotiate a way to make art and a living. She, along with other forward thinking women of her time, created a path where none existed for those of future generations.

Emma Belle Richart Freeman
Romance
ca. 1900-1910
Northern California Series

As a whole, Freeman's observations of Native Americans were romantic dreams...a spiritual concept of nature as the common source of perfection. Mankind, especially the Native American, appeared in this idyllic paradise in roles of heroic splendor. By 1913, the popular idea of "nature" had begun to assume a new meaning to whole generations of young people who had never participated in the early settlers' struggle to colonize the West. Her "Northern California Series" intended to picture Native Americans with dignity and to grant them a place of honor, albeit through an idyllic lens.

Emma Belle Richart Freeman
Romance
ca. 1900-1910
Northern California Series

Freeman pursued an art form that combined drawing, painting and photography, one in which the artist's own hand was evident throughout. Her popular Indian portraits were exhibited at the Panama Pacific Exposition, and were chronicled in various industry journals like Camera Craft and popular magazines such as the Illustrated Review. One of her photographs was presented to President Warren G. Harding and hung prominently in the White House.


In 1915, a romantic encounter between Emma and a visiting dignitary led to scandal and ultimately to the divorce of the Freemans. She continued work, however, and to shoot beyond portraiture. During World War I, Freeman photographed a United States submarine that had run aground on a beach near Eureka. The cruiser Milwaukee, dispatched to the scene to aid in the rescue was lost to the heavy surf as well. Freeman was there to capture every detail of the disaster and rushed her photos to San Francisco where they appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, which noted: "Every day since the Milwaukee went ashore, Mrs. Freeman has been  on the job with her camera. She has taken more than 200 photographs of the scene, most of them under trying conditions of fog and wind and weather."  Freeman waded through water and rats in the hold of the vessel as she boarded the water-logged cruiser in search of great photographs. In recognition for her documentary work, she was appointed the "official government photographer" for all matters relating to the disaster and salvage operations.



Emma Belle Richart Freeman
Stranding of USS Milwaukee
ca. January 13,  1917
Photograph-Department of the Navy -- Naval Historical Center
Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.


In 1919, Freeman relocated her arts and novelty supply company to san Francisco and she set up in a newly remodeled three-story building. Freeman did art and advertising work there, along with selling art and Indian goods until 1923, when competition and an unscrupulous business partner led her into bankruptcy. Freeman moved to a smaller store and continued to work until her retirement in 1925. On Christmas Eve, 1927, Freeman had a debilitating stroke and finally passed away three months later, at age 48, in March of 1928.

The late photographic historian, Peter E. Palmquist, wrote of Mrs. Freeman, "Emma brought a unique vision to subject matter, for her approach to composition was heroic, her subject treatment allegorical, and her style painterly. Her surviving photographs clearly illustrate her training in the fine arts. Her groundbreaking efforts were made almost entirely on her own; in fact, her contemporaries in the region were purely traditional photographers. She alone enjoyed the reputation of 'artist with the camera'."   

Emma Belle Richart Freeman
Bartered Bride
ca. 1900-1910
Northern California Series

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 Sources:
Emma Belle Freeeman, Photographer, http://www.historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2685&, retrieved April 22, 2014.
Women Artists of the American West, Women Photographers and the American Indian,
Peter E. Palmquist, retrieved April 22, 2014.
Women Artists of the American West, Susan Ressler, ed. McFarland & Company, Inc. North Carolina, 2003, p. 214-215.
Ask Art, Emma Belle Freeman, http://www.askart.com/AskART/index.aspx, retrieved April 23, 2014. 

Abby Williams Hill: Tacoma Painter and a Woman before her Time

Abby Williams Hill
ca. 1870s

I am so inspired by the story of Abby Rhoda Williams Hill (1861–1943) and I hope you are as well. Abby was a painter and an activist with a love of travel and learning. Her artwork provides a lasting vision of many of the iconic sights of the American West, and her papers paint a rich picture of American life between the Civil War and World War II. Hill was an intrepid explorer who loved to be in the wilderness, unhampered by societal codes of dress and behavior, She was a Progressive and firm advocate to the Congress of Mothers (today’s National Parent Teacher Association) and lobbied on behalf of disadvantaged children, African Americans, Native Americans, and other marginalized groups.

Abby Hill grew up in Grinnell, Iowa, with much encouragement in her art by her parents and received early art training from her aunt, a botanical watercolorist. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1883, and then, at the Art Students League in New York under the tutelage of William Merritt Chase. After her marriage to Dr. Frank R. Hill in December of 1888 in Brooklyn, New York, the couple moved to Tacoma, Washington, just as Washington Territory became the 42nd state. They remained there and at nearby Vashon Island until 1910. While a resident there, Hill continued her art training in Munich (1895-97) with Herman Haase, and at the Corcoran Gallery School, Washington, D.C. in 1905 when she made the decision to pursue painting as a career.


Abby and Frank Hill
ca. N.D.

Hill was far from the typical Victorian woman. When her husband, Frank, demanded she wear a corset and bustle like other genteel housewives of the period, she negotiated. If he would agree to wear the uncomfortable undergarments for a day, and if, after that experience, he still expected her  to do so, she would acquiesce. A reasonable man, Dr. Hill agreed to the experiment and never again asked his wife to squeeze herself into an hourglass shape in the name of fashion.

During their time in Washington, Hill reared a family of four children. Her first child, son, Romayne Bradford, was born partially paralyzed, but with her love of the outdoors and belief that fresh air and exercise would be the tonic needed to help her son, she dedicated the next six years to his health. Over the ensuing years, the Hills adopted three more children (all girls) all of whom would accompany her on local camping trips and travels, typically without Frank.

Hills' independent spirit is difficult to appreciate during our time in which women have so much freedom and so many opportunities. The Victorian era dictated strict rules of behavior for women that Hill largely disregarded. She often headed into the wilderness to paint in remote places, usually accompanied by at least two of her children — which made traveling even more of a challenge. At her campsites, she kept a journal, describing her encounters with snakes, landslides, Indians on horseback, rain, wind and, at one point, such intense heat that she couldn't pick up her metal paint tubes without burning her fingers.


Abby Williams Hill
Horseshoe Basin
ca. 1903
Oil on canvas
University of Puget Sound

In 1909, Dr. Hill suffered a mental breakdown that left him catatonic for weeks at a time. Forced to leave Tacoma due to her husband's recurring illness, diagnosed as Psychotic Depression, Hill moved the family to Laguna Beach, California, then a remote, burgeoning artist colony. Abby became a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association.

Dr. Hill became a patient at various hospitals and for years, Hill cared for him and surrendered much of her time dedicated to painting to help him recover. When he was released in 1924, she bought an automobile to allow the family to winter in Tucson Arizona, travel to the Deep South, and explore a number of locations in the West. Unfortunately, in 1931, Dr. Hill's illness forced him to return to the hospital in Southern California, so Abby settled in nearby San Diego to be available when her husband needed her.

Abby Williams Hill
Balsatic Rocks
ca. 1904
Oil on canvas
44 x 34 inches
The Athenaum

Abby Williams Hill
Grotto Playing
ca. 1906
Oil on canvas
17 x 22 inches
The Athenaum

Hill became a painter of the West in the 1890s. Her most widely displayed artwork was created during the first decade of the twentieth century when she was commissioned by both the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railroads to produce a series of landscapes of the scenes along their routes. Abby was to create 22 oil on canvas pieces in 18 weeks while traveling on trains, handcars, stages, steamboats, and horses. In exchange for the use of her work, she was given four tickets, each worth one thousand miles. Hill would travel to the most remote locations to record the beauty of the west, and at the end of her journey, surrender her canvases and her rights to them to the railroads. In addition, as a woman traveling without male companionship, she was vulnerable to unwanted attention from men who made certain assumptions about her character. Hill braved the discomfort of heat and cold, trudged across snowfields, organized baggage and cared for her children, often brought along on her expeditions. Her assignments took her to such rugged locations as remote terrain in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and other areas west of the Cascades.

Abby Hill camping with her four children
Probably before 1910

During this period, Hill met and painted a number of Native Americans including the Flathead of Montana, the Nez Perce of Spalding, Idaho, the People of north-central Montana at Harlem, and the Yakima of Washington. She considered the Native Americans her friends and portrayed them with dignity and respect. She bartered with the Flathead to exchange English lessons for dancing lessons, and, with a list of grievances, wrote to Washington, D.C. on their behalf.

ca. n.d.
Oil on canvas
Missoula Art Museum

Chief White BullTa-tan-ka-sha
Minniconjou Sioux, Flathead Reservation, Montana
ca. 1905
Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition

Following the death of her husband in 1938, Abby Hill became bedridden. She died in Laguna Beach  in 1943 five years later.

Hill's exhibitions included those of the Western Washington Industrial Exposition, Tacoma; World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago; Lewis and Clark Exposition, Portland, Oregon, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Jamestown Centennial, Hampton Roads, Virginia; Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (two gold medals), Seattle; and Laguna Beach Art Association. The University of Puget Sound held an exhibition of her works in 1964.

Abby Williams Hill is represented in the collections of Ames College, Iowa, Grinnell College, Iowa, and a permanent collection of her works and papers is held by the University of Puget Sound.
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Sources
University of Puget Sound, Abby Williams Hill Collection, http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/collins-memorial-library/archives/abby-williams-hill-collection/, retrieved April 7, 2014.
Abby Williams Hill: Unfettered in Life and Art, Shelia Farr, Seattle Times Art Critic, http://seattletimes.com/html/entertainment/2003797045_visart20.html, retrieved, April 7, 2014.
Chattermarks from North Cascade Institute, http://chattermarks.ncascades.org/?s=abby+Williams+Hill+in+the+North+cascades, retrieved April 8, 2014.
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovnick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovnick, University of Texas Press, 1998.
Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition, http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_nation/chief_white_bull.htm, retrieved April 10, 2014.
National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History, Polly Welts Kaufman, New Mexico Press, 2006.

"I MUST paint...it's a disease" Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert

Minerva Kolhepp Teichert

When she wrote her memoirs in the late 1940s, painter Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert recalled the moment when her future as a Western woman artist became clear. She attended a critique in Robert Henri's portraiture class at the Art Students League in New York where she studied from 1915 to 1916. Henri asked her if anyone had ever visually told the "great Mormon story" and Teichert answered no, not to her satisfaction. Henri advised, "Good Heavens, girl what a chance. You do it. Your're the one!" Teichert left New York soon thereafter, returned to her family's homestead in Idaho, near the Utah border, married her "cowboy sweetheart," did the books for the family ranch, raised five children and painted almost every day of her life.

 Minerva Kohlhepp was born in North Ogden, but grew up in a  homestead farming family in the vicinity of American Falls, Idaho. Her father encouraged her sketching in childhood and she soon developed an "indomitable will to succeed and excel in the field of art."

Minerva left home for the first time at age fourteen to work as a nursemaid for a wealthy Idaho family in San Francisco where she was exposed to art in museums for the first time, and attended classes at Mark Hopkins Art School. However, it was not until she graduated from high school and taught for several years that she was able to pursue any serious art training. By age nineteen, she scraped together enough money to get to Chicago, where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute under the draftsman, John Vanderpoel, a master of the academic school of painting. Several times during her three-year course work she returned home in order to earn more money in the fields or in the classroom to get back to school to follow her dream. To finance her study in New York, she created a roping act for the New York stage and this is when she began her custom of wearing a distinctive head band. 

Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Hole-in-the-Rock
n.d.
Oil on canvas
LDSArt.com

Minerva quickly emerged as a top student in her popular art classes. When questioned about her choice of subjects for her art, she’d say, “There’s too much sagebrush in my blood to forget the beauties of rugged mountains [and] dry plains.” She was recognized for the excellent quality of her animal paintings as well. For over half a century, Teichert painted hundreds of murals and easel paintings for churches, schools, and private patrons throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Well-known throughout the Mormon community, Teichert's obscurity in the art world may be due to her particular attention to Mormon history and theology. She concentrated her work on scenes from western Americana and religious artwork that expressed her deeply held convictions.

Teichert painted over 400 murals in which women and western themes feature prominently such as The Madonna of 1847, which depicts a mother and child in a covered wagon, crossing the plains to settle in Utah. Teichert is known for a set of 42 murals from the Book of Mormon, as well as her murals inside the Manti Utah Temple. Teichert's distinctive style can be seen in the painting Christ in a Red Robe, in which women can be seen reaching out to Christ, who is depicted in a red robe at his second coming, referencing Isaiah.

Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Christ in a Red Robe
ca. 1945
Oil on canvas
LDS Museum Store Online
 

During the 1930s, early in the Great Depression, Teichert's commitment to her art work began to pay off. Like most everyone else, the Teicherts were struggling to make ends meet. Minerva was determined to contribute with her artwork, but she needed to reach out to a larger market. She traveled to Salt Lake City in search of an agent. At a meeting with Alice Merrill Horne, a well-connected art dealer in Utah, she unrolled a mural and said simply, “Please look at this.” Horne was astonished. Just two weeks later, Horne had arranged an exhibit of Teichert’s work and within months, Teichert would meet with the governor of Utah and receive enthusiastic reviews of her art in major Utah newspapers. In 1932, when the Teicherts’ economic situation reached a crisis, Horne found several buyers, and Teichert’s paintings saved the ranch.

As Teichert’s profile rose in Utah, the artist continued to explore stories of the Mormon migration and scriptural themes. By 1947, she had risen to the top of the Mormon art world, winning first prize in the Church’s centennial art contest and became the first woman invited to paint a temple mural.
Teichert increasingly felt it was her responsibility to tell the Book of Mormon story in images so that “he who runs may read,” a common phrase from the time taken from the book of Habakkuk. After finishing the Manti Temple mural, she set out on what she expected to be her masterwork—42 paintings of Book of Mormon stories, rendered large enough and simple enough to be “read” at a glance.

Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Handcart Pioneers
ca.1940
Oil on canvas
 77 x 49 inches
Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah

Finishing the paintings in 1952, the 64-year-old Teichert anticipated how the works might accompany the Book of Mormon text, or be used as slides by missionaries around the world, or be sold as a book of paintings. Unfortunately, they were never sold. She was praised for her beautiful art work, but no one bought the paintings, and, for the remainder of her life, she strove to find a buyer. Her longtime agent and friend died, murals became less popular and tastes changed. It became more difficult for Teichert to get commissions and to sell her work. Not to be discouraged, she continued to paint, she found a new agent, and her artwork with western themes became marketable in Utah and beyond.

Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Queen Esther
ca. 1939
Oil on Canvas
14 x 9.7 inches
Collection of Betty Curtis and William Lee Stokes 

In the spring of 1970, Teichert fell from her porch and broke her hip, possibly after suffering a stroke. She would never paint again. She died in 1976. The story does not end here, however. In 1969 she had given the Book of Mormon paintings to Brigham Young University with no compensation or promise of publication. Upon receipt BYU showed the paintings briefly, then stored them away. In 1997, after the resurgence of interest in her work, BYU held a major exhibit of the Book of Mormon paintings and created a companion volume of the collection. BYU religion professors also lobbied to have Teichert’s Book of Mormon series line the hallways of the Joseph Smith Building, making it possible, in effect, for those who run to Book of Mormon class to read.

Her work was re-discovered after her death with a new appreciation for her excellent technique and the enormity of her body of work. Teichert's works are displayed at the campus of BYU including the Museum of Art. One of Teichert's most famous exhibits, "Pageants in Paint," has been on display in the BYU Museum of Art. The exhibition examined how the American mural and pageantry movements influenced Teichert’s artistic production through 47 of her large-scale narrative murals.



Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert
Return of Captive Israel
ca. 1945
53 1/2 x 90 inches
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Relief Society Building, Salt Lake City, Utah
 

During her many active years, Teichert had one-person exhibitions at the Washington Museum, New York (1915), and at the Alice Merrill Horne Galleries, Salt Lake City (1932, 1939). Among group shows, she hung works at the Idaho State Capitol, Boise; Springville Museum of Art, UT; First National Exhibition of American Art, New York; and event of the Wyoming Artists Association.

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Sources:
Painting the Mormon Story, Peter B. Gardner, http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2124, (retrieved 3/28/2014). 
Brigham Young University News Release, Opening reception for “Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint” Sept. 26 at MOAhttp://news.byu.edu/archive07-Sep-pageant.aspx (retrieved 3/ 27/2014)
Independent Spirits, Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, Patricia Trenton, ed.
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovnick and Marian Yoshiki Kovnick.

Ruth Armer: From the Representational to the Abstract

Ruth Armer
California Autumn
ca. n.d.
              oil on canvas        
30 1/8 in. x 38 1/8 in
SFMOMA

Ruth Armer was a painter, lithographer and teacher, whose work style ranged from her early, more representational work, to her later, more abstract art. Known today as one of San Francisco’s more profound abstractionists, many of her works feature desert scenes, giant sequoias, and her beloved city of San Francisco, among many additional California subjects. 

 

Ruth ArmerA New Dawn

ca. 1947
Oil on canvas
24 x 41 inches

 

Ruth Armer
#2
ca. 1949
Oil on canvas

Ruth Armer was born in San Francisco on May 26, 1896, where she spent the majority of her career as an artist. Armer studied at the California School of Fine Arts from the years 1914-15 and 1918-19. In between, she studied at the Art Students League and School of Fine and Applied Art in New York, under noted artists/instructors George Bellows, Robert Henri, Kenneth Miller and Joan Sloan. During this time, her artistic career was greatly influenced by Leo Stein and Max Weber.

 

Armer became a painter of landscapes, musical themes, and figures in both oil and watercolor. During her career she worked as a commercial illustrator as well as a landscape and portrait artist.

After returning to California, she exhibited at Gumps San Francisco, the San Francisco Art Association and the San Francisco Women Artist Annuals, as well as galleries in New York, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Portland, and Honolulu. Armer taught drawing, painting, and design in addition to children's Saturday classes at the California School of Fine Arts from 1933-1940. She served for many years on their Board of Directors. 

 

Armer participated in two competitive exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and was invited twice to show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

 

 

Ruth Armer

#328,

ca. 1958

oil on canvas

41 7/8 in. x 28 in.

Collection SFMOMA, Anonymous gift;

 

Armer's work during the 1940s could be considered a visual diary, recording the phases of her life and her responses to historical events. Her paintings during the war years had a tendency to be dark, composed of ragged shapes that recall the later work of Clyfford Still. After 1945, Armer's palette brightened, reflecting the confidence of the postwar era.

 

From the early 1940s until the early 1970s, Armer was a trustee of the CSFA and remembered the school generously in her will. In her later years she created small, abstract paintings of "orbs and illusions of vast spaces that fragment into energized squiggles, leaf patterns, and paisleys." Harvey Jones of the Oakland Museum of Art felt that Armer's work represented  the "post-Surrealism" movement of the 30s and 40s, founded by artists Helen Lundeberg and husband Lorser Feitelson. Jones felt that her artwork during that time led to her abstract work of the 1950s.

 

 

 Ruth Armer

The Light Place

ca. n.d.

Acrylic on canvas

10.125 x 14.125 inches

 

Ruth Armer

 

Ruth Armer was an active, exhibiting artist until her death on August 29, 1977 in her beloved native city of San Francisco.

 

Solo Exhibitions:
Vickery, Atkins & Torrey, 1922
Cleveland Museum of Art
San Francisco Museum of Art, 1936, 1939
Quay Gallery, 1972, 1975

Public Collections:
Oakland Museum
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

 

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Sources

Calabri Gallery, http://calabigallery.com/artists/ruth-armer/, retrieved March 11, 2014.

SFMOMA On the Go, Works by Ruth Armer, http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artists/1055/artwork, retrieved, March 11, 2014.

AskArt: The Artist's Bluebook, Ruth Armer, http://www.askart.com/askart/a/ruth_armer/ruth_armer.aspx, retrieved, March 11, 2014.

Sylvia Moore, ed., Yesterday and Tomorrow, California Women Artists, Midmarch Arts Press, New York, 1989.

Patricia Trenton, ed. Independent Spirits, Women painters of the American West, 1890-1945, University of California Press, 1995.

Archives of American Art, Ruth Armer Papers, 1911-1976, http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ruth-armer-papers-8803