Anne Kutka McCosh, Oregon Encyclopedia

This entry appears on the Oregon Encyclopedia, a project of the Oregon Historical Society, at www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mccosh-anne-kutka.

Anne Kutka McCosh. Leaving the Lecture: The Faculty Wives, 1936. Oil on canvas, 25 x 31 inches. Gift of the artist to the Center for the Study of Women in Society; Transfer to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art; 2012:14.1

Anne Kutka McCosh, a nationally-recognized and regionally important visual artist and teacher, lived in Eugene, Oregon for the last sixty years of her life. In the 1930s and 1940s her work in oil and gouache was in the narrative tradition of American Scene painting. Her subject was the character of the urban life she knew in New York City and in the college town of Eugene.1 In the 1950s and 1960s, her focus shifted to making insightful and expressive portrait studies often of women and children in oil and also in charcoal and ink drawings and lithographic and woodcut prints. Her later work shows the powerful influence of her mentor in drawing, Kimon Nicolaides, and of the Mexican muralists she had known, Jose Orozco and Diego Rivera.2 Born in Danbury, Connecticut, Anne was raised in Yonkers, New York in a large immigrant family with a strong Czech heritage. When she was a young girl, her oldest sister bought art supplies for her and encouraged her to try her hand at drawing.3 Her siblings and friends were delighted by Anne’s early efforts at illustrating stories they all knew which led her to enter the Yonkers School of Design in 1916. During the 1920s, intent now on making art her life, she worked her way through the Art Students League in New York City where she studied with some of the most influential artists and teachers in America including the painters Kenneth Hayes Miller, Thomas Hart Benton, and Kimon Nicolaides.4

Between 1928 and 1933 she worked as the manager of the G.R.D. Studio Gallery on 57th street 5 in Manhattan. These were heady years when modernism was sweeping through American art. She often talked about the new trends in painting with the major collectors and the famous artists of the day who visited the Gallery, including Jose Orozco, who had a studio nearby.6

Her spirit, talent and insight were recognized with successive Tiffany Foundation Fellowships and a G.R.D. Gallery Scholarship which allowed her to travel and study painting in Mexico (at Orozco’s urging) where she met the muralist Diego Rivera and to work in the Foundation’s studio facilities at Oyster Bay on Long Island.

At Oyster Bay she met the young painter, David McCosh, also a Tiffany fellow,7 and he became the love of her life. They were married and moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1934 where David accepted an appointment to teach painting at the University of Oregon.8 They both lived in Eugene for rest of their

lives. David became an influential teacher and a major Northwest artist.9 He benefited greatly from Anne’s support which allowed him to focus on his work and his teaching. She was also a constant colleague who understood and believed in his painting.

Anne was a major presence in the arts in Eugene. She taught at the Maude Kerns Art Center for more than 20 years and in her private studio at home.10 Her students were often young people who came to her to explore art as a means of personal expression as well as older women and men who were at a point in their lives where they had the time to develop a long-suppressed interest in art. Anne was an inspirational teacher who treasured and encouraged art made with serious intent. But she was unstinting in her candid criticism of even well-known artists whose work failed to meet the professional standards that she believed all artists must master.11

She was also a well-regarded painter who exhibited regionally and nationally.12 In the 1950s and 1960s, Anne and David travelled throughout Oregon and also to Mexico, Europe and the American Southwest. While he focused his art on the landscape, she created a series of drawings and paintings that capture the character of people she encountered of all ages and from all walks of life.13 Her work is in the permanent collections of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the Portland Art Institute.

Towards the end of the 1960s, David contracted a progressively debilitating disease and Anne gave up her art to dedicate herself to his care. After his death in 1981, Anne worked tirelessly to preserve his extensive body of work and his legacy as a teacher. In 1990 she contributed her entire estate to the University of Oregon Foundation to create the David John and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Endowment Fund of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art which provides funding for the preservation and study of David’s work and for the support of other related programs at the Museum.14

Only after the Endowment was completed would Anne permit her own work to be exhibited again. Anne believed that her responsibility was to preserve David’s work and promote his legacy even though it meant neglecting her own art. It was her professional assessment that David’s work was simply more important than her own.15

In 1991, a retrospective exhibition “Art from Life: Painting and Drawings by Anne Kutka McCosh” was presented at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum. In the following years, her work was shown in the national touring exhibition “Women of the West 1890 – 1995” and in well-received gallery exhibitions in Seattle and Eugene.16

Anne brought to Eugene the excitement and the energy of the New York City art scene of the 1920s and 1930s. Her students and colleagues learned from her example that art is a way of life that demands and rewards complete commitment. Her legacy as an artist is in her rare ability to capture and recreate the character of another person in her paintings, drawings and prints.

Roger Saydack

1 See, e.g., Anne Kutka McCosh, Leaving the Lecture: The Faculty Wives, 1936, oil on canvas, 25 x 31 inches. Gift of the artist to the center for the Study of Women in Society; transfer to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The University of Oregon. Eugene, Oregon. 2012:14.1 (Accessed in January 2019 at: http://jsmacollection.uoregon.edu/detail.ph p?t=objects&type=all&f=&s=Anne+Kutka+McCosh&record=11)

2 See, e.g., Anne Kutka McCosh, Thryza Anderson, 1967, ink and acrylic on paper, 16 15/16 x 13 ¾ inches. The Vivien and Gordon Gilkey Graphic Arts Collection. 91.84.414. The Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon. (Accessed in January 2019 at: http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=27613;type=101).

3 Fong, Lawrence M. “Art from Life: Paintings and Drawings by Anne Kutka McCosh.” [exhibition catalog]. July 21 – September 22, 1991. University of Oregon Museum of Art (Eugene, Oregon). (“Fong Essay”).

4 “McCosh, Anne Kutka” (entry). Allen, Ginny and Klevit, Jody. Oregon Painters -The First Hundred Years (18591959). Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press. 1999. (“Oregon Painters”).

5 “UO Museum Show Showcases Local Artist’s Life’s Work”. The Register- Guard (Eugene, Oregon). July 19, 1991. (“R-G Article”).

6 RG Article

7 Knapp, Danielle. “The David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Collection: Stewarding a Legacy.” [introduction}. Saydack, Roger. David McCosh: Learning to Paint is Learning to See. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. (Eugene, Oregon). 2016.

8 Oregon Painters.

9 See Roger Saydack. David McCosh (1903-1981) (entry). The Oregon Encyclopedia (accessed in January 2019 at: https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mccosh_david_1903_1981_/#.XC1o7y2ZOu4).

10 “Anne McCosh” [obituary]. The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon). March 19, 1994.

11 Saydack, Roger. David McCosh Learning to Paint is Learning to See. “Anne McCosh: One Remarkable Woman.” (essay). Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art: Eugene, Oregon. 2016. (“One Woman Essay”).

12 During her lifetime, her work was included in exhibitions at the New School of Social Research in New York City (1931), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1932, 1934), Art Institute of Chicago (1935), Denver Art Museum (1938), New York World’s Fair (1939), University of Oregon (1944, 1949), Museum of Modern Art (1953), Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Seattle Art Museum. Oregon Painters.

13 Fong Essay; One Woman Essay.

14 Oregon Painters; One Woman Essay.

15 One Woman Essay.

16 One Woman Essay.

David McCosh in studio, photograph by Mary Randlett (American, born 1924), 1973

Published by Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

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Published with private support from The David John and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Museum Endowment Fund.

Danielle M. Knapp, Editor Mike Bragg, Designer

All photography, unless otherwise noted, by Jonathan Smith. FPO

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