A RT IC L E S 6
Eugene White Professor of Art for 40 Years
By Paul White (’68)
Born in Abilene, Texas, growing up south of there on a farm near Tuscola, Eugene White was able to save up enough money to start at Abilene Christian College in 1928. He ran out of money after the first semester and had to drop out until 1932, when he returned on a ministerial scholarship. There he met Irene O’Neal in chorus Eugene White showing his son Larry how to cast clay pots (from the movie 21 Years about Pepperdine College) practice. They were married May 17, 1935, at the home of Leonard Burford, professor of music at Abilene Christian. The ceremony was performed by Batsell Studio in just a few days. He was involved with the grand Baxter, father of Batsell Barrett Baxter. Their “honeymoon” opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, painting murals at the museum. He was also very involved in the spread of the was the next day, taking off on chorus tour. Gospel and helped begin a new church on Eighth Avenue. On graduation, he was able to teach art for one year at Eugene heard of the new Pepperdine College opening in Abilene Christian. The Great Depression caused cutbacks Los Angeles, and Hugh Tiner, founding dean and then in teacher salaries and positions and he was then without president, of the new college, offered him a teaching a job. A friend told him about a job in San Francisco, position in art at Pepperdine beginning in the fall of 1939. California, so they drove there in 1936 along with many So, they moved to Los Angeles. The art department began others, in the “Great Dust Bowl Migration.” Arriving in in the basement of the President’s Home, and was there San Francisco with 20 cents between them, the promised until the new auditorium and Fine Arts Building was job had gone to someone else. He grabbed his portfolio, completed in 1944. and hit the streets, landing a job with Moulin Photographic He loved making pottery and set up a kiln at their first Los Angeles house on 84th Street. The neighbors complained of the smell (plus not being within code), so they moved to Bell Gardens. He was helped by his wife Irene and six employees (including his mother!) to produce what he had designed— all of this while teaching at Pepperdine. He expanded the business because, at the onset of WWII, so many students left for the war, he thought he’d be out of a job.
Eugene White viewing artwork at one of the many exhibits during 1963-1964 school year.
Some of his pottery was featured in Better Homes and Gardens and the Los Angeles Times in the late 1940s. He had an agent who got his pottery distributed coast to coast in stores and some wound up in the hands of several movie stars, such as Dorothy Lamour. Two book volumes titled California Pottery were published by Jack Chipman, which featured some of his work. Anyone familiar with Fiesta dinnerware will know what a lot of it looked like.