Final catalog planned organized established

P L A N N E D, O RG A N I Z E D A N D E S TA B L I S H E D

H O U S T O N A RT I S T C O O P E R AT I V E S I N T H E 1930s 1 930s

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Willows, c. 1931, oil on burlap, 20¼ x 15⅞ inches. Collec on of Mary Binder, Corpus Chris . Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, Beaconsfield Apartment Building, 1931.

This pain ng can be seen in the photograph of the Houston Ar sts Gallery on the front cover of this publica on.

Front cover: Fi h Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1937. RGA0013-B11-SB1938-233b, Houston Public Library, Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC).

Myrtle Stedman, Grace Spaulding John, and Beulah Ayars, Houston Ar sts Gallery, Beaconsfield Apartment Building, Houston, c. 1931. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

P L A N N E D, O RG A N I Z E D A N D E S TA B L I S H E D

H O U S T O N A RT I S T C O O P E R AT I V E S I N T H E 1930s 1 930s

Essays by Randolph K. Tibbits, Kelly Montana, and Sco Grant Barker, with introduc on by Danielle Burns Wilson

Published by The Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA) San Angelo, Texas

Exhibi on organized by the Houston Public Library and curated by Danielle Burns Wilson, Randolph K. Tibbits, and Tam Kiehnhoff August 12–November 9, 2017 Julia Ideson Building 550 McKinney Houston, Texas

1

Published by the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA) P. O. Box 3726 San Angelo, Texas 76902 www.caseta.org Essays by Randolph K. Tibbits, Kelly Montana, and Scott Grant Barker, with introduction by Danielle Burns Wilson Edits by Tam Kiehnhoff, Rick Bebermeyer, and Christina Grubitz Design and layout by Linda Reaves

Copyright Š 2017 by the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA) All rights reserved First edition No part of this catalog may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except that brief passages may be quoted for reviews.

Printed in Houston by Masterpiece Litho, Inc.

ii 2

We gratefully acknowledge the donors whose generous gifts made this publication possible.

Bill and Cynthia Gayden The Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA) Houston Earlier Texas Art Group (HETAG) Minnette Boesel Cindy and Larry Burns Bonnie A. Campbell Scott Chase and Debra Witter Rie Davidson Congelio Gail and Jack Davis John DeMoss and Karen Lund Caitlin Duerler En Amie Review Club of Houston Jon Evans Leila and Henri Gadbois Pete Gershon and Lindsay Kayser Jo Frances G. Greenlaw Christian Kelleher and Theresa Clarke

Tom and Tam Kiehnhoff Lisa Lipscomb and Brian Hill Sandra and Bobby Lloyd Larry Martin Virginia and Jerry McNeely Jo Ann and Bill Owens Carol and Dan Price Stan Price and Clay Huffard Kay Sheffield Patricia and Jeffrey Sone Richard Stout Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer in memory of Donald M. Rose Mary Ellen and Tom Whitworth Sarah Beth Wilson and Joseph McKeel

We are grateful to the lenders who made the exhibition possible by sharing artwork from their collections.

Albritton Collection Ann Richardson Atkinson Mary Binder Jacqueline Whiting Bostic Rie Davidson Congelio Margaret and Don Deal Nathan and Stephanie Deal Dow Art Galleries Leila and Henri Gadbois Pat and Frank Nelson and Pam and Will Harte Permanent Collection of The Heritage Society Houston Public Library, Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC) Houston Public Library Collection, City of Houston Mark and Geralyn Kever

Tom and Tam Kiehnhoff David Lackey and Russell Prince The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Bobbie and John Nau Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum Ted and Nancy Paup Linda and Bill Reaves William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art Shirley and Don Rose Konrad Shields and Wes Miller Lias J. (Jeff ) Steen Sam and Juli Stevens Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer Dave Walling and Leonard McDonald Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University

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Jewel Woodard Simon, The Stream, c. 1930, oil on board, 12 x 16 inches. Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

Jewel Woodard Simon was an exhibi ng member of the Negro Art Guild of Houston.

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CONTENTS

Introduc on, by Danielle Burns Wilson

7

The Houston Ar sts Gallery, 1930–1939, by Randolph K. Tibbits

10

The Public is Invited to A end: The Negro Art Guild of Houston, by Kelly Montana

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New Deal Entrepreneurs: The Fort Worth Ar sts Guild Opens a Gallery, by Sco Grant Barker 26 Gallery Index

33 88

v 5

6

I N T RO D U C T I O N Danielle Burns Wilson

Art does not belong to any particular race. It is an interpretation of nature by an individual. One cannot be taught to appreciate art, but one must see art; the appreciation will come from within.

James Chillman Jr., first director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston1

The Houston Public Library’s exhibition, Planned, Organized and Established, adds a new chapter to the story of the 1930s art community in Houston by featuring two prominent art cooperatives: the Houston Artists Gallery and the Negro Art Guild. Artists practicing several different media joined together to display their work at venues for the community to see and, hopefully, purchase. The Houston Artists Gallery met at the Beaconsfield Apartment Building basement and other borrowed spaces, while the Negro Art Guild organized an exhibition every year at Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library. Almost ninety years later, some artists occupy a small place in the American artistic canon. Most, however, remain unknown not only to the general public but to many scholars.

Throughout history artist collectives have been vibrant communities providing artists with opportunities to exhibit and sell their art. Cooperatives enhance professional development among artists and benefit the community as a whole.2 Their aesthetic standards place value on art that is beautiful and well crafted, while recognizing that beauty is subjective and technical detail is an artist’s labor of love and that a Facing page: Program, page 2, Fi h Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1937. RGA0013-B11-SB1937-207-2, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

Announcement, Fourth Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1936. RGA0013-B11-SB1936203d, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

beautiful piece of art is not created without both and a dash of the artist’s soul.3 Cooperatives make art welcoming to those familiar and unfamiliar without compromising the integrity of the art or the artist who created it.

What this exhibition makes obvious is that Black artists were casualties of a segregated culture, a culture that separated its artists as forcefully as it segregated its public institutions. Though they could not be exhibited together in the 1930s, Black artists were encouraged

by White patrons and artists. Despite Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised Black citizens and separated them from White people in virtually every aspect of public life, a few prominent members of the White arts community attended exhibition openings and even served as keynote speakers.

7

This exhibition is the first time paintings from the Houston Artists Gallery and the Negro Art Guild unite in one gallery. It also unites paintings that were shown separately in the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas; White artists Elizabeth Morris’ Texas Magnolias and Fredric William Browne’s Chauvigny, France were displayed in the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Building, whereas Black artist Samuel Countee’s My Guitar was exhibited in the Hall of Negro Life.

Elizabeth Morris, Texas Magnolias, 1936, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston. Exhibited, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Building, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

Samuel Countee, My Guitar, 1936, oil on canvas, 46 x 36 inches. Collec on of Sam and Juli Stevens, San Antonio.

Exhibited, Hall of Negro Life, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

Frederic Browne, Chauvigny, France, 1936, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches. Collec on of Linda and Bill Reaves, Houston. Exhibited, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Building, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

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DANIELLE BURNS WILSON

It also reunites one of the foundations of art modernism in Houston—Ruth Pershing Uhler’s Earth Rhythms series—for the first time since it was shown in the 1936 Annual Houston Artists Exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where Earth Rhythms No. 3 was selected as a purchase prize winner of the year.

To much chagrin, we have only been able to include four paintings by artists of the Negro Art Guild in the exhibition. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of very few works are currently known, but it is our hope that more works by these artists will come to light as their story is told through this exhibition and catalogue.

This fully illustrated catalogue delves deeper into histories of these two separate-but-parallel artist organizations. Essays by exhibition co-curator, Randolph K. Tibbits, and Kelly Montana, Curatorial Assistant, Menil Drawing Institute, explore the development of Houston-made art in the 1930s.

Texas cultural historian and independent curator Scott Barker’s essay gives a fascinating glimpse into a similar cooperative that existed in Fort Worth during the same time.

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythms No. 3, 1936, oil on canvas, 25¼ x 30⅜ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 12th Annual Houston Ar sts Exhibi on, museum purchase prize, 1936, 36.2 © Estate of Ruth Pershing Uhler.

Notes Planned, Organized and Established is ambitious.

In providing a forum for the works, it seeks to restore some critical balance to the reputations of little known Houston artist communities in the 1930s. It also serves as an important reminder that work still needs to be done and strives to place Houston artists, Black and White, within a broad cultural context. The exhibition invites a critical dialogue that incorporates the work of these artists into a larger discussion of 1930s art, a process that will certainly enlarge and enrich the history of the era as well as the history of American art.

1. “Art Exhibit Sponsored by Branch Library,” Houston Informer, May 30, 1936.

2. Arden Anderson, e-mail message to author, April 17, 2017.

3. Anderson, e-mail.

Danielle Burns Wilson is the Curator of Special Exhibitions and Manager of the African American Library at the Gregory School for the Houston Public Library.

INTRODUCTION

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THE HOUSTON ARTISTS GALLERY, 1930–1939 Randolph K. Tibbits

The Houston Artists Gallery, located in basement rooms in the Beaconsfield Apartment Building at 1708 Main Street, opened its doors to the public for the first time on Sunday, November 30, 1930. According to contemporary accounts, it had been in the works for a long time—as long as a week, even. As the arts writer of the Houston Daily Post put it: “Planned, organized and established within the period of a week, the Houston Artists’ [sic] Gallery came as if produced by a magic wishing bone for the professional artists of Houston.”1 There were already other galleries in the city where Houstonians could find paintings for their walls— sometimes even paintings made by Houston artists— but the Houston Artists Gallery was different.2 It was to be a gallery exhibiting only Houston-made art all the time, the work of the member artists who had come together to form the cooperative they hoped would give them more opportunity to exhibit and sell their art.

The potential for cooperative efforts to spark interest in Houston-made art had been noted before the founding of the Houston Artists Gallery. One local observer, in praising the far-sightedness of Mrs. Hardie Robinson for organizing a just-finished “picture market” of Houston art mounted in the Lamar Hotel in December 1927, noted that previously “no concerted or co-operative effort had been made to acquaint the city itself, much less the Southwest, with the uncounted and uncountable talents within its [Houston’s] gates.”3 That exhibition, from which 19 paintings were sold, had been so successful that Mrs. Robinson was already planning a second edition for November 1928; and, more immediately, she continued the well-begun effort by hanging a series of one-artist exhibitions—all works for sale—in her own apartment, beginning with Frederic Browne in January 1928, and continuing with 10

a large group of oils by Emma Richardson Cherry in February, along with works by several other Houston artists, most of whom would later become founding members of the Houston Artists Gallery.4 The still new Museum of Fine Arts also gave Houston artists some opportunities to find outlets for their work through a series of one-artist shows begun as early as 1917, under the auspices of the Houston Art League, precursor of the museum, and continuing when the museum building opened in 19245 and through annual juried exhibitions of the work of Houston artists mounted at the museum from 1925 to 1960.6 In the early days, artists were allowed to sell works from these museum exhibitions.

But at best the museum shows were once-a-year events, and exhibitions initiated by dealers or gallerists happened at the discretion of the non-artists who mounted them. Such outings were neither frequent enough nor focused enough to satisfy the needs or the egos of professional artists hoping to further their careers, and maybe even make a living from their art.

It was that lack of sustained exhibition and sales opportunities for Houston artists that Grace Spaulding John, along with other professional artists in the city, intended to address with the Houston Artists Gallery, a cooperative space established, funded, and operated by and for the member artists. As John confidently wrote in the draft of her promotional statement about the gallery, “We have artists here in Houston who are working just as hard as artists ever worked in Egypt, Babylon, or Paris. … Here in this gallery may be found exhibits of the Houston Artists … Just a little shop where art may be purchased, carried home, lived with, enjoyed, and eventually as the years pass, some of it may find it[s] way to the Louvre, the greatest museum in the world.”7

Back in 1924, John and a dozen other Houston artists had already organized a “Houston Picture Market” at her studio—an effort they hoped would develop into a “large gallery here, where authentic works of art may be viewed and purchased.” The idea may have drawn on similar artist-run efforts like the cooperative gallery at Woodstock founded in the early 1920s.8 John herself said that she realized the importance of “collective activity” in Mexico City during the summer of 1930, where she encountered artists from “Europe, Mexico and the Northeastern states along the Atlantic coast.” When she returned to Houston in the fall, she and some of her fellow Houston artists “went to the studio of E. Richardson Cherry, and there over a cup of tea the idea brewed for a gallery where artists of Houston could exhibit their work.” Whether or not there were precursors to their gallery, John and the others thought they’d come up with something new: “So far as those in charge know, nothing like it has ever been attempted in the United

States. They receive many inquiries in regard to the work from various parts of the country.”9 It is fitting that the instigators of such a forwardlooking endeavor in Houston were women, since, as James Chillman Jr., first director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston famously said decades later, “art in Houston was a woman’s concern.”10 The prominence of women in Houston professional art circles stands in marked contrast to the situation in other major Texas cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In fact, most of the 22 founding members of the Houston Artists Gallery were women, though there were also a few men: Beulah Schiller Ayars, Marjorie Lockman Bodet, William Bulkley, Elizabeth Burge, Alan Clapp, Emma Richardson Cherry, Ola McNeill Davidson, Martha Hicks (Minta) Garrison, William Haas, Rebecca Henry, Grace Spaulding John, Penelope Lingan, Virgie Claxton Lowenstein, Helen McKenna, William McKenna, Beatrice Matthaei, Hattie Virginia Palmer, Crescenciano Garza Rivera, Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Wilfred Stedman, Louise Stevenson, and Ruth Pershing Uhler.11 All the members were White, of course, since racial segregation in Houston in the 1930s was a given. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, though founded as a place for all Houstonians, allowed Black Houstonians to visit only one evening a week until the 1950s.

Notably, at least one Latino artist was a founder of the Houston Artists Gallery—the Mexican, Crescenciano Garza Rivera, who came to Houston in 1928 as art director of The Houston Gargoyle—but the idea that Black Houston artists might have become members would have been unimaginable at the time to most Houstonians of either race.12

Grace Spaulding John in her studio, Houston, 1929.

Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

Clearly, however, the Black Houston artists of the day had similar exhibition and sales aspirations for their own art, which led them to participate in the separate-but-parallel exhibitions mounted at the Colored Carnegie Library, and in the founding of the Negro Art Guild. Kelly Montana brings these activities of Houston’s African American artists to light in her groundbreaking essay in this publication.

HOUSTON ARTISTS GALLERY

11

Over the course of its existence from 1930–1939 as many as 100 artists may have been members of the Houston Artists Gallery, though that number seems somewhat high.13 But whatever the number, it is safe to say that most of the White Houston artists who considered themselves to be professionals, as well as many of those with aspirations to become professionals, were members.

It is worth noting that only artists could be members. A draft of bylaws, presumably prepared by Grace Spaulding John, originally provided for two classes of members: (1) Members and (2) Patrons or Friends. But class 2 was stricken, and Article V flatly states, “The association shall have membership composed of artists,” with the last three words handwritten by John herself in the typed document. There was to be no question as to whose interests would be served, or who would be in charge. New artist members could be admitted by a majority vote of existing members, based on consideration of three submitted examples of their work, and payment of $30 or “artistic work” of equivalent value.14 When the gallery opened for its first exhibition, the fittings may have been basic—cake pans were converted to light reflectors—but enthusiasm abounded. The members drew lots to determine the placement of paintings, and the artists themselves took turns staffing what now seem like long hours—10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday to Saturday, and 2:00 to 6:00 PM Sunday. Covering that many hours with member volunteers must have proved difficult, since in later announcements the morning hours disappeared.

But one advantage of long hours, perhaps often with few interruptions from viewers and buyers, was that members had time to work. Several pairings in the current exhibition show that they often did their individual takes on set compositions or themes, perhaps stealing glances at the canvases of their fellow members as they painted—just as most probably had done in their student days.

The money to keep the gallery open came from monthly dues and a 25% commission on all works sold. All members had the right to have some work on view in the general gallery at all times; and, in addition, an ambitious series of one-artist shows gave over an entire gallery to a single artist for a two-week 12

RANDOLPH K. TIBBITS

stint starting in February 1931, and continuing through the 1931–1932 season, after which they became less frequent.15 The list of those one-artist shows reads like a roster of the leading Houston artists of the time.

1931: February 1—Buck Schiwetz etchings, drawings, and lithographs.

February 15—Penelope Lingan portraits, miniatures, and sculptures.

March 1—Emma Richardson Cherry career-spanning watercolors.

March 15—Grace Spaulding John paintings done in Mexico.

March 29—Hattie V. Palmer paintings of bluebonnets.

April 12—Wilfred Stedman black and white illustrations, block prints, and half tones along with portraits and paintings done in Colorado.

November 1—Ruth Pershing Uhler new oils (including her painting of spider lilies against a Chinese background in the current exhibition).

November 15—Crescenciano Garza Rivera 22 drawings in pen and ink along with his painting, Flower Vendor, gold medal winner at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

November 29—Myrtle Stedman watercolors and Wilfred Stedman paintings of the Houston Ship Channel.

1932: February 7—Virgie Claxton Lowenstein paintings done during a summer in Spain.

February 21—Rebecca Henry landscapes done during a summer in Nashville, Tennessee, and Beatrice Matthaei works using the human figures in abstract design.

March 6—Beulah Schiller Ayars oils and drawings.

March 21—Angela MacDonnell oils, watercolors, and pencil sketches done in Spain.

April 3—Penelope Lingan miniatures, oils, small statuary, reliefs, watercolors, and pencil sketches (exhibited for three days only).

Though it might be tempting to dismiss the members of the Houston Artist Gallery as mostly rich White ladies having a lark, that characterization would do them a grave disservice. True, John, Palmer, and Claxton appear to have been financially secure, and Cherry had been so until advancing age, the declining health of her husband, and the economic collapse

of the Depression made money to pay for basic necessities scarce for her. But, as has often been the case for artists since the end of the days of patrons, most made their livings from jobs not solely from selling their art. Some taught (Matthaei in the public schools, Uhler at the Museum School, Cherry and Palmer in their own studios); some of the men worked in advertising and illustration art (McKenna, Garza Rivera). But whatever their personal financial statuses, all were serious-minded professionals, many of whom had been making their art for decades.

The other officers all came from the ranks of the artist-members: Cherry, vice-president; John, gallery director; Helen McKenna, secretary; Bulkley, treasurer; and Davidson, William McKenna, Wilfred Stedman, and Uhler, trustees. By that first election meeting the membership had already grown, with the addition of Jack Pagan to the list.17

In only another couple of weeks the new officers took another major step toward ensuring “the existence of this gallery for the coming year” with the founding of the Friends of Houston Art, drawn from the social They were also practical, and quickly realized— and economic A-list of the city—Wortham, Clayton, maybe realized from the beginning—that their own Cravens, Cleveland, and Sewall are only a few of the dues and sales commissions would not cover gallery prominent names included. “In return for this gesture expenses. At the first election of officers in March 1931, of friendship the artist members have each given the members elected the non-artist, Florence (Mrs. two pictures which will constitute a collection from Henry B.) Fall, president. Though according to bylaws which each friend will be privileged to choose one for not eligible for membership, since she wasn’t an artist, himself.”18 Fall was one of the most prominent civic women of Houston, long deeply involved in the arts as president Flush with funds from Friends subscriptions, of the Houston Art League in the days leading to the the Houston Artists Gallery upgraded its fittings for founding of MFAH, vice-president of the Texas Fine the 1931–1932 season. “The best lighting available” Arts Association, and president of the Texas Federation replaced cakepan reflectors; 400 yards of osnaburg of Women’s Clubs, among her many affiliations during turned into pleated hangings to cover the walls—the an active life. At her death, in 1935, her obituary was women members sewing the pleats, though according front-page news in the Houston newspapers.16 She was to a newspaper account, “the men had to be called in an excellent choice as first leader of a new organization to put up the moulding on which the pictures were aiming to assert itself as a force in Houston art. hung.”19 In a bid to stimulate wider community interest, members instituted a lecture series in March 1932, in which they took turns presenting talks open free to the public. Virgie Claxton Lowenstein discussed her recent study in Paris with the French cubist painter and teacher André Lhote (March 8); Ruth Pershing Uhler addressed “Elements of Design in Pictures” (March 15); and new member Carden Bailey spoke on Chester Springs, the summer art retreat of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, his alma mater (March 22).20

Ola McNeill Davidson, Houston, 1930s. Courtesy of Rie Davidson Congelio, Houston.

But bringing in the money to cover expenses month after month during the Depression presented challenges, and with the close of the 1931–1932 season, the dedicated galleries in the Beaconsfield basement had to be “abandoned.”21 With the new season, beginning in October 1932, the Houston Artists Gallery entered a long nomadic period, always hoping for a new permanent space of its own, but never again finding one for very long.

HOUSTON ARTISTS GALLERY

13

On October 3, 1932, the group opened an exhibition in the Beaconsfield basement, perhaps in the galleries that had so recently been their own, but now occupied by the Jan Olmsted marionette studios.22 By October 9 they were also exhibiting at James Bute Company and the Teolin Pillot Company;23 a late November announcement stated that they were “opening a permanent exhibit at Pillot’s Book Store.”24 The Pillot space clearly did not work out, and in February 1933 the message became, “New permanent quarters for the Houston Artists Gallery have been located at 1205 Caroline.”25 It was at that space, in March 1933, that Taos artist Emil Bisttram delivered a lecture in which he found the art “lions asleep” in Houston, but encouraged them to become modern and “raise the devil in this town.”26 Through the 1933–1934 season, they exhibited in a dedicated space in the Junior League Building (now occupied for many years by Brennan’s Restaurant); then in 1934–1935, at Angela MacDonnell’s Cottage Gallery, located at 903 Stuart; in 1936–1937 Charlotte Wilcox, owner of The Browse About Book Shop at 3012 Main, planned to find permanent space for them, and even instituted an art rental program “borrowed from abroad” but thought to be the only such program in the South.27

But after the early settled days in the Beaconsfield, the Houston Artists Gallery never again found a longstanding home of its own, though that remained a goal throughout the life of the group. Finally, in 1939, “the oldest group of artists in the city … once active in promoting the work of local painters and sculptors, took no interest in this last year and failed to hold any important sessions.” Elizabeth Morris, who had taken over as president at the death of Florence Fall in 1935, explained that “she did not feel there would be any effort made this year to revive or reorganize the group.”28 And with that, the Houston Artists Gallery ceased to be.29 The demise of the Houston Artists Gallery did not occur because the need for a cooperative, artist-run space in which Houston artists could show and sell their work had ended. In fact, by January 1941 a new organization emerged, the Associated Artists, whose “primary purpose … is to find a permanent sales gallery for the works of Houston artists.” Newspaper accounts of the new group sound almost like an echo of pieces published a decade earlier: “With its own art gallery, where prospective purchasers can go and see examples of the work of particular artists and with a good live sales committee … Houston can some day [sic] be called an art as well as an industrial center.”30

Ruth Pershing Uhler and Grace Spaulding John at Patches, Houston, c. 1939. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

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Though some of the names long-familiar in Houston art circles, who had been among the founders of Houston Artists Gallery—William McKenna, Virgie Claxton (who now was not listed by her married name), and Buck Schiwetz, all listed as directors of the new group—appeared again, perhaps not surprisingly, after 10 years and in a city with a burgeoning population, many new names appeared as well: Gene Charlton, Dorothy Hood, Loren Vallee, Julian Muench, Ruby Stone Markham, and many others. So many, in fact, that membership was closed by February 1941, when it already stood at 75.31 Clearly the need persisted, and the means seemed uncannily similar.

So why had the Houston Artists Gallery ended when it was to be followed so soon by a new group which almost seemed cloned from its very DNA? And ultimately had it failed as an organization?

The answer to the first question has more to do with the life cycle of organizations, perhaps, than anything else—especially volunteer organizations attempting to coordinate over long periods, individuals as markedly unique as artists.

The answer to the second question is a resounding NO. For a full two years the member-artists had indeed maintained their own gallery of Houston art, thereby raising awareness among their fellow Houstonians, and even beyond the city limits, that Houston did indeed make art of its own. Even after the dedicated Beaconsfield gallery closed, the group managed to maintain its identity for another eight years—years during which it had an impact on the artistic life of the city in multiple ways: raising money to augment the maintenance fund of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston hit hard by the Depression;32 instituting a scholarship program to provide free art instruction for children, as a memorial to Mrs. Fall;33 organizing exhibitions of their art in stores along Main Street during the first National Art Week in November 1936;34 among many other activities.

In the prelude to the 1936 Texas Centennial, the Houston Artists Gallery even attempted to influence the politics of art, communicating more than once with the Centennial division of the State Board of Control in Austin, insisting on the need for an art

board composed of artists and museum professionals to screen proposed Centennial art expenditures and displays to avoid what they feared might be underway, “that Seventh Day Adventists and the Ku Klux Klan will try to outdo the Masons in planting private emblems and monuments in San Jacinto Battleground,” for the glorification of their politics rather than art.35 It is a sign of the times that a group owing so much to its women members—its very existence, in fact— sent its lobbying letters under the name of a male member, secretary, William Bulkley, and suggested that the oversight board should be “composed of men long identified with the best of public art interests.”36 It is not a surprise that this foray into politics did not succeed.

But, in what was perhaps a much more important area, the Houston Artists Gallery did succeed.

Though the members had not been able to maintain a permanent exhibition and sales space for Houston artists, they succeeded brilliantly in bringing Houston artists together for cooperative action—White artists, that is—and thus helping them become able to imagine themselves as a group performing important work, not just as individuals, but together as a significant force for the cultural and economic benefit of Houston. They began to see themselves as a colony within the city, but also as an asset to the city. In 1933, when Bertha Louise Hellman took readers on a newspaper tour of artist studios in “Houston’s Little Bohemia,” the headline of her article read: “Houston’s Art Colony is Big Asset for City.”37 If the individual artists she mentioned, all of whom were members of the Houston Artists Gallery, had had any doubts about their importance to the city before the founding of the group in 1930, by the time Hellman wrote they had doubts no longer, and they loudly proclaimed that importance to their fellow Houstonians. More and more, their fellow Houstonians seemed to be listening.

Randolph K. (Randy) Tibbits is an independent curator and researcher specializing in Houston art history of the early twentieth century. He has been involved in numerous exhibitions and is a contributing arts writer for the Houston Press, coordinator of the Houston Earlier Texas Art Group (HETAG), and a board member of The Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA).

HOUSTON ARTISTS GALLERY

15

Notes 1. Maxine Tindall, “Houston Artists Display Work at New Gallery,” Houston Post-Dispatch, November 30, 1930.

2. The history of galleries in Houston is yet to be written, but in the 1920s and 1930s, in part spurred by a burgeoning interest in art in the city that accompanied the opening of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1924, several galleries operated.

Among the galleries active during the period which sometimes showed Houston artists, with approximate dates of operation, are: Yunt Gallery, 1924‒1938, owned by the brother-sister team of Samuel M. Yunt and Catherine Yunt, first as seasonal exhibition of paintings, then as a dedicated gallery often showing Houston artists, both in Houston and in Dallas (The Yunts also had a presence over the years in Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Dallas and warrant further research.); The Little Gallery, 1926‒1930, run by Fannie Volck; La Vieille France, 1931, managed by Parker Edwards, where “the main gallery is to be devoted to Houston and Texas artists’ work in monthly exhibitions through the season.”; Cottage Gallery, 1934‒1935, operated by artist, and Houston Artists Gallery member, Angela MacDonnell; Matzene Gallery, 1935‒1936, briefly operated at 2615 Fannin by photographer, collector and widely known Oriental traveler, Richard Gordon Matzene. The James Bute Paint Company, in business for more than a century, sold artist supplies as part of its general paint and wallpaper business; Bute also showed and sold art throughout most of its existence, greatly expanding its activities and influence as a distributor of Houston-made art when Ben DuBose took charge of the art department in the later 1940s. It is likely that other businesses that sold artist supplies or provided furniture and interior decoration services also displayed and sold art. In short, there were a number of potential exhibition and sales venues for Houston artists in the period, but no others fully dedicated to Houston art and run by the artists themselves. Our Little Gallery (of abstract art), briefly operated in 1938—possibly extending into early 1939—by artist, Ola McNeill Davidson, and a group of students, including Carden Bailey, Harley Brubaker, Nione Carlson, Gene Charlton, Frank Dolejska, Dean Lee, and Robert Preusser, and also showing the work of Forrest Bess and Christine Garland, was somewhat similar in intent to the Houston Artists Gallery, but was much more informal and shorter lived.

3. Ina Gillespie, “Exhibit of Houston Artists Seen as First Step Toward Making City an Art Center,” Houston Chronicle, January 1, 1928.

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RANDOLPH K. TIBBITS

4. “Mrs. Cherry’s Works Center of Interest of Home Galleries,” Houston Chronicle, February 26, 1928. “The room containing the Cherry pictures has as a contrasting note three plaster heads by Clare Dieman, which are charming in conception. The water colors of Rebecca Henry and Emily Langham also occupy space in the Cherry room.”

“The exhibition of the works of Frederic Browne, which hung last month, caused so much interest that it is being retained along with some Venetian scenes from the brush of James Chillman, Jr., some decorative things by McNeill Davidson, and a number of examples of the work of Maude West, Margaret Brisbine, Ruth Uhler, Evelyne Byers, Hattie Virginia Palmer, and Bertha Louise Hellman.” “The works of Grace Spaulding John and Ruth Uhler will share honors during the next fortnightly showing.”

5. A thorough list of these one-artist exhibitions, as well as the Houston Annual Exhibitions, and all other exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which included Texas artists from 1917 to 2000 can be found in Alison de Lima Green’s Texas: 150 Works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2000), 260‒267.

6. Such locally focused exhibitions were frequent in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries in cities across the country, including Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and many others. Some were juried and limited to local artists; some were either or neither. James Chillman Jr., first director of the MFAH, who had come to Houston from Philadelphia, initiated the exhibitions here in 1925. The show was always limited to residents of Harris County and was always juried—jurors sometimes coming with significant regional, even national, art credentials. The Houston Annuals, as they were often called, continued until the arrival of James Johnson Sweeney to be MFAH director in 1961.

7. Photocopy in the possession of the author.

8. “Market for Pictures Formed by Artists,” Houston Post-Dispatch, November 28, 1924. Thanks to Alison de Lima Greene for pointing me to the Woodstock Artists Association Gallery, where artists set exhibition policies and ran the gallery beginning in the early 1920s, and financing was provided from the sale of shares to many of the same individuals (see Tom Woolf, “The Founders of the Woodstock Artists Association: A Portfolio,” The Hudson Valley Review, vol. XVIII, no. 1, [March 2001], 73–80). Also, a 1930 article dealing with the London Artists’ Association may well have come to John’s attention since The Studio, the British journal in which it appeared, was a standard read for artists at the time (John Maynard Keynes. “The London Artists’ Association.” The Studio, June 1930).

9. Ola H. Beaubien, “Houston Artists’ Gallery Unique as Civic Project,” Houston Post Dispatch, December 13, 1931.

10. James Chillman Jr., “Houston,” Texas Painting & Sculpture: The 20th Century (Dallas, Printed by Brodnax Print Co., 1971), 14 [catalog to a touring exhibition].

11. “Artists Gallery at Beaconsfield to Open Sunday,” Houston Chronicle, November 30, 1930.

12. Most White Houstonians at the time may not even have been able to imagine that their Black fellow citizens even made art, since they heard little about it. A search of the recently digitized Houston Chronicle produced almost 300 mentions of the Houston Artists Gallery in the 1930s, but only one of the Negro Art Guild, and that one a mere two paragraph notice of a recent weekly meeting at which Houston Artist Gallery member, Angela MacDonnell (named in the article as “Angela McDonald”) spoke, which probably accounts for the appearance of the notice at all.

“New Negro Art Guild Holds Weekly Meet,” Houston Chronicle, July 20, 1937.

13. Ione Kirkham, “Art and Artists,” Houston Press, November 5, 1937.

14. “By-Laws of Houston Artists Gallery,” 1931. Grace Spaulding John papers, MS 383, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Box 15, Folder 14.

15. The gallery was closed for a long summer, generally from April to October, and during the holiday season all galleries were devoted to promoting general sales, so oneartist shows were not mounted during those periods.

16. “Death Claims Mrs. H. B. Fall; Funeral Today,” Houston Post, February 18, 1935; “Funeral Held for Houston Clubwoman,” Houston Chronicle, February 18, 1935.

17. “Houston Artists Name Officers; To Open Exhibit,” Houston Chronicle, March 8, 1931.

18. “List of Patrons of Houston Art is Made Public,” Houston Chronicle, March 22, 1931.

19. Beaubien. “Houston Artists’ Gallery Unique as Civic Project.”

20. “Lectures to be Given at Artists Gallery;” “Art Lecture to be Given at Gallery;” “Angela MacDonnell Exhibit Shown at Artists Gallery;” Houston Chronicle, March 7, 14, and 20, 1932.

21. Ione Kirkham, “Gallery Makes History With Extension of Its Show at Country Club,” Houston Press, March 12, 1937.

22. “Exhibit is Opened by Artists Gallery,” Houston Chronicle, October 3, 1932. Not much is known about Olmstead, except that she made marionettes and staged entertainments using them in schools. In January 1939, she

joined with Gene Charlton, Russell Davis, Forrest Bess, and Carden Bailey to mount an exhibition on “the dance and kindred subjects in oils, water colors, crayons, and marionettes” at the Bess studio, 2602 South Main. “Studio Chatter,” Houston Chronicle, January 8, 1939.

23. “Mrs. Henry B. Fall Elected President of Artists Gallery,” Houston Chronicle, October 9, 1933.

24. “Artists Gallery to Open Exhibit at Pillot’s Store Today,” Houston Chronicle, November 20, 1932.

25. “New Quarters for Artists Gallery to be Opened Sunday,” Houston Chronicle, February 2, 1933.

26. “Artist Found ‘Lions Asleep’ Here, He Says,” Houston Chronicle, March 17, 1937. By contrast, in Dallas, where he had visited just before coming to Houston, he had found the lions “wide awake and experimenting with various modes of expression in art.” One wonders how loudly his Houston audience applauded when he finished.

27. Ione Kirkham, “Only Lending Gallery in South Offers Work of Houston Painters,” Houston Press, March 19, 1937.

28. “Houston Group No Longer Active,” Houston Press, September 1, 1939.

29. The name, however, persisted, or was revived. In the 1950s, Polly Marsters opened a gallery on South Main Street also called Houston Artists Gallery. Aside from the name, there does not appear to have been any connection with the earlier, cooperative gallery of the 1930s.

30. Cora Bryan McRae, “Artists Will Set Up Sales Organization,” Houston Chronicle, January 12, 1941.

31. “Charter List is Closed by Artists Group,” Houston Chronicle, February 2, 1941.

32. “Card Party,” Houston Chronicle, January 26, 1933.

33. “Memorial Fund Exhibit on View Through Tuesday,” Houston Chronicle, March 29, 1936.

34. “Houston Artists Will Display Their Work in Stores on Main Street,” Houston Chronicle, November 8, 1936.

35. “Fear Adventists, Klan Will Try to ‘Outdo’ Masons at Battleground Expressed,” Houston Chronicle, February 11, 1936.

36. “Art Board for Centennial is Suggested,” Houston Chronicle, January 14, 1936.

37. Bertha Louise Hellman, “Houston’s Art Colony is Big Asset for City,” Houston Post, June 30, 1933.

HOUSTON ARTISTS GALLERY

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Members of the Houston Artists Gallery, 1930–1939

McVey, William Mozart Meysenburg, Virginia Cunningham, (Mrs. Robert Carr Meysenburg)

Ayars, Beulah Schiller, (Mrs. Lee C. Ayars)

Morris, Elizabeth H., (Mrs. Robert B. Morris)

Bagnell, Edgar W.

Pagan, John S. (Jack)

Bailey, Carden

Palmer, Hattie Virginia Young, (Mrs. Charles Palmer)

Best, Margaret Callahan, (Mrs. J. Boyd Best)

Rivera, Crescenciano Garza

Browne, Frederic William

Russell, Evalyna

Bulkley, W. E. (William)

Schiwetz, Edward Muegge (Buck)

Burge, Elizabeth

Stedman, Myrtle Kelly, (Mrs. Wilfred Henry Stedman)

Burton, Caroline, (Mrs. Caroline B. Claassen)

Stedman, Wilfred Henry

Cherry, Emma Richardson, (Mrs. Dillin Brook Cherry)

Stevenson, Louise Ayars, (Mrs. Louis A. Stevenson)

Clapp, Alan

Stone, Mildred B., (Mrs. Jesse R. Stone)

Claxton, Virginia (Virgie), (Mrs. Joseph Lowenstein)

Uhler, Ruth Pershing

Connor, Barbara

Wier, Mattie

Crabb, Robert James (Bob)

Wildman, Caroline Lax, (Mrs. John W. Wildman)

Crittenden, Ethel Stuart, (Mrs. E.M. Crittenden) Cummins, Sascha Morrison, (Mrs. Robert James Cummins) Davidson, Ola McNeill, (Mrs. James S. Davidson) Davis, Helen Cruikshank, (Mrs. William B. Davis) Farrar, Margaret. (Mrs. Roy Montgomery Farrar) Garland, Christine K., (Mrs. David H. Garland) Garrison, Martha Hicks (Minta), (Mrs. John T. Garrison) Haas, F. William Jr. Heaps, Amy Belle Gridley, (Mrs. Claude W. Heaps) Hellman, Bertha Louise (Liza), (Mrs. Charles A. Rublee) Henry, Rebecca Harriet Houliston, William James Jr. House, Dorothy Denslow, (Mrs. H. H. “Jack” House) John, Grace Zillah Briggs Spaulding, (Mrs. Alfred Morgan John) Joy, Robert Langham, Emily M. MacDonnell, M. Angela Markham, Ruby Stone, (Mrs. James P. Markham, Jr.) Matthaei, Beatrice Emiline, (Mrs. Julius B. McBride) Matthews, Harold Jackson McKenna, Helen, (Mrs. William D. O’Neill) McKenna, William A.

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RANDOLPH K. TIBBITS

William A. McKenna, Houston, 1930s. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

Ola McNeill Davidson, Virgie Claxton, Grace Spaulding John, Ruth Pershing Uhler, Florence Fall, Emma Richardson Cherry, Elizabeth Morris, Beatrice Ma haei, Mrs. Frederick M. Burton, and Penelope Lingan, Houston, c. 1931. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

Sources Houston Post-Dispatch, November 11, 1930 Houston Post-Dispatch, February 7, 1931 (lists 3 new members) Houston Artists’ Gallery pamphlet, 1931 Houston Post-Dispatch, December 13, 1931 Houston Post, February 5, 1933 Houston Chronicle, March 14, 1937 For ease of cross reference, the spelling of most names in the above list conforms to spellings appearing in John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas before 1942 (Austin: Woodmont, 2000).

RKT 4/11/17

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THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO ATTEND THE NEGRO ART GUILD OF HOUSTON Kelly Montana

On October 3, 1930, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opened the city’s first art exhibition to feature the work of Black artists. Titled “Work by Negro Artists,” the show opened to considerable fanfare, though the critics seemed to be most impressed by the fact that fine art could be made by Black Americans.1 On view were works by thirty-four artists, among them Palmer Hayden, Lois Mailou Jones, and Hale Woodruff—all of whom would go on to become noted luminaries of American art—and highlighted the diversity of visual arts made under the auspices of the New Negro movement. The exhibition was organized by the Harmon Foundation and sought to make work

by Black artists accessible to the public. However, as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston operated under segregationist policies, Black Houstonians had one opportunity to view this remarkable exhibition, as there was only one evening a week for them to visit without an appointment. The very people the exhibition was intended for were effectively barred from attending.

Within three years of this show, Black Houstonians would no longer have to wait for a particular evening to see art by and for their peers. Across the United States, each city seemed to have its own burgeoning Harlem Renaissance, not just the namesake New York neighborhood. In Houston, one such Renaissance was

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taking shape among local visual artists, a group of young men and women coming together to share and exhibit their art. They would eventually call themselves the Negro Art Guild, and they met weekly at Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library. Houston’s Negro Art Guild was a community of Black artists sharing ideas about art, presenting lectures, and organizing exhibitions of their work. The history of this short-lived group demonstrates how art at this exciting yet turbulent time for the Black community in Houston acted as a form of solace, pride, and protest.

By 1930, Houston’s population had grown threefold in fifteen years to over three hundred thousand residents. Sixty thousand of these residents were Black, and were largely clustered in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Ward neighborhoods of the city.2 The lure of jobs brought many of these people to Houston from rural communities. In her book The Other Great Migration, historian Bernadette Pruitt evinces that many Black Houstonians at this time could chart their ancestry to enslaved or freed peoples. That these citizens were only one generation removed from slavery increased racial consciousness in this era and led Black communities to organize around their own interests and needs.3 They formed social clubs, charitable service groups, and fraternities that all met to address a particular social cause or injustice.

One such group was the Pilgrim Congregational Church and Library Association, established to raise funds for a library accessible to African Americans.

In 1909, they successfully founded Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library. A few decades later, it would be this library, alongside churches, schools, and community centers that would rise to the challenge of providing an exhibition venue for the city’s aspiring young artists.

For Pruitt, these exhibits and works of art “challenged White supremacy [by] highlighting Black creativity, intelligence, protest, and economic independence.”4

that the “library may be center for art.”5 Artists listed as exhibiting in the show were Ivy Campbell, Samuel Countee, George Gilbert, J. L. Gray, Herman Henderson, J. C. Johnson, Murphy Kibbe, Ben Mouton, and W. E. Woods, and their favored subject matters range from pastoral scenes and historical paintings to characters from literature and people from their everyday lives. J. L. Gray’s submission was a portrait of E. O. Smith, then the principal of Houston’s Phillis Wheatley High School, where Gray may have been a student.

In the summer of 1933, the Colored Carnegie Library of Houston had a grand reopening after a closure for renovations. As part of the opening celebrations, an exhibition of art by local high school and junior college students was hung on the library walls. The brief exhibition proved to be a success, with the Houston Informer suggesting in one headline

Even at this early stage in their careers, a few of these young artists had achieved considerable success—Countee’s work The Little Boy had been selected to travel in one of the famed Harmon Foundation exhibitions, and Mouton was showing work in New York concurrent to the show at the library.6

Reopening Ceremony, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1933. RGA0013-2140, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

NEGRO ART GUILD OF HOUSTON

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Due to the success of this exhibition, head librarian J. A. Hulbert began making arrangements for an annual art exhibition and related awards ceremony.

The Houston Informer announced that the library would be sponsoring the program in order to “bring about a keener interest and appreciation for such work among Negroes, and to bring to the attention of Houston the local persons who have artistic ability and who deserve support and encouragement.”7 Local social clubs put their support behind the initiative and the Houston Black newspapers provided ample editorial encouragement. Hulbert enlisted the help of James Chillman Jr., the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to arrange for a jury of well-regarded artists to select the work from local submissions. Emily Langham, an artist and arts instructor (one of her students was the exhibiting artist Samuel Countee), would hang the show. Many of the same artists that participated in the summer exhibition submitted work and were accepted for the first annual art exhibition. Joining their ranks were the artists N. V. Tatum, of Beaumont, and Jewel Woodard, a local schoolteacher.

The second annual art exhibition the following year furthered the successes of the group and included far more women artists than in the previous year. New names to join the roster were Maggie Brown, Willie Lee Cannon, Ethel Ellison, and Vera Thompson, and there was talk of the show travelling to Xavier University after its close.

The library would go on to organize five more annual art exhibitions, each one with increasing documentation. At the fourth annual exhibition, the library distributed program pamphlets that show the openings had music and were usually commenced with a special lecture on art. Galveston artist Frank Sheinall is known to have participated in that year’s exhibition. First prize was awarded to Samuel Countee for The Harpist.

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KELLY MONTANA

Samuel Countee, The Harpist, 1934, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches. Collec on of Jacqueline Whi ng Bos c, Houston.

Awarded 1st prize, Fourth Annual Art Exhibit, Carnegie Colored Library, Houston, 1936.

It was around this time that listings appear in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Informer advertising Negro Art Guild meetings at the Colored Carnegie Library. Each listing notes that anyone from the public is welcome to attend the meetings, which were held every Monday evening at 8:00 PM. Sponsored by librarian Florence Bandy, the president of the Guild was A. B. Byars and the secretary-treasurer was John Cunningham. To date, no other information has been found regarding this loose association of artists, but it seems to have been formed as a way to keep the momentum, encouragement, and energy that the annual exhibitions generated alive for all the other months of the year.

The last known annual exhibition was held at the library in 1938. Photographs that document the exhibition were placed in scrapbooks kept by library staff. In these images, it is evident that the exhibitions were indeed large affairs, with art displayed on nearly every surface. There were curated exhibits that grouped artists’ drawings together alongside handcrafted pieces like vases and textiles, as well as artwork and books laid out on large tables for visitors to peruse.8

Of the many artists who displayed work in the annual exhibitions, two would achieve prominence as artists.

Samuel Countee would go on to study at Bishop College in Dallas, paying his tuition through portrait commissions. He would then move to Boston and study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1934.

His work My Guitar would be selected to show in the Hall of Negro Life at the Texas Centennial in Dallas alongside works by Archibald Motley and Aaron Douglas. Countee’s paintings, Mother and Lady with Harp are both held in the collection of the artist’s niece. Over the course of his life, Countee exhibited his work at Howard University, the Institute for Modern Art, Boston, and The Renaissance Society, Chicago, among others, and his work is held in the collection of Fisk University. In 1945, he received a commission to paint a large mural at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, which can still be seen today.

Jewel Woodard would also go on to a productive career as an artist. In the 1930s, while she was exhibiting work at the library, she was employed as a math teacher at Jack Yates High School.

In 1939, she moved to Atlanta with her husband, Edward Simon, where she would reside for the rest of her life. In 1967, she became the first African American to graduate from the Atlanta College of Art. In 1981, she was invited by the Tamarind Institute to be an artist-in-residence and create lithographs with their staff. During her lifetime, she exhibited work at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Oakland Museum of Art, among others, and her work is held in the collections of the DuSable Museum, Chicago, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, and the Ringling Museum, Sarasota.

Jewel Woodard Simon, The Stream, c. 1930, oil on board, 12 x 16 inches. Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

The Negro Art Guild was a vibrant community of Black visual artists during Houston’s Harlem Renaissance. In pursuing art, these young men and women created works that were forms of protest unto themselves, defying mainstream depictions of African-American life, and embracing the power of representation on their own terms.

Samuel Countee, Mother, 1930s, oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches. Collec on of Jacqueline Whi ng Bos c, Houston.

Kelly Montana is the Curatorial Assistant for the Menil Drawing Institute.

NEGRO ART GUILD OF HOUSTON

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Notes 1. Hubert Roussel, “Pensive Painters: Some Daubers and An Artist,” The Houston Gargoyle, October 5, 1930.

2. Charles Olson Cook, “Harlem in Houston,” The Harlem Renaissance in the American West (New York: Routledge, 2012), 12–25.

3. Bernadette Pruitt, The Other Great Migration: The Movement of Rural African Americans to Houston, 1900– 1941 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2013), 8.

4. Pruitt, The Other Great Migration, 207.

5. “Library May be Center for Art,” Houston Informer, July 29, 1933.

6. Series B, 46, Box 12, Scrapbook 1933–1934, Houston Public Library Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center.

7. “Library Plans for Exhibit of Negro Fine Art,” Houston Informer, October 28, 1933.

8. Series B, 46, Box 11, Scrapbook 1938, Houston Public Library Collection, Houston Metropolitan Research Center.

Ar sts Exhibi ng at Colored Carnegie Library, 1933–1938 Allen, Lloyd Anderson Brown, Maggie Burnett, Mr. Byers, Arthur Campbell, Miss Ivy Cannon, Willie Lee Clay, J. L. Countee, Samuel Albert Cunningham, Mr. J. E. Duncan Ellison, Ethel Ferguson, Ada Harriett Fields, A. F. Frazier, M. Gilbert, George Gray, J. L. Hart Henderson, Herman Holley, J. S. Hurbert, Mrs. Johnson, J. C. Johnson, R. C. Kibbe, Murphy Mouton, Ben J. Norris Randall, Mrs. R. P. Reese, Bernard Reese, Bernice Reese, Mrs. A. Robinson, Feddie Robinson, Mrs. Ida Shannon, A. T. Sheinall, Frank F. Shepherd, Robert Spivey, Mrs.

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KELLY MONTANA

Sources

Tatum, Mrs. N. V. (Beaumont)

“Key to paintings,” Art Exhibit at Formal Opening, Colored Carnegie Library, July 23, 1933 [typewritten list of 14 titles and 8 artist names in Carnegie Colored Library scrapbook, Houston Public Library, HMRC].

Thompson, Vera

“Library May be Center for Art,” Houston Informer, July 29, 1933.

Walker, Henderson

“Key to paintings,” First Annual Art Exhibit, Houston Public Library, Colored Branch, November 19–December 2, 1933 [typewritten list of 44 titles and 11 artist names in Carnegie Colored Library scrapbook, Houston Public Library, HMRC].

Stubblefield, Beaugardas Stubblefield, Clayton

Walkins, Isiah Wallace, Miss Edna Mae Walson Wiley, P. T. Williams, Priscilla (Mrs. P. V.) Woodard, Jewel (Mrs. Edward Simon) Woods, Ezell Woods, Frank Woods, F. F. Woods, W. E.

“Colored Carnegie Library to Stage Art Exhibit,” Houston Informer, November 10, 1934.

“Art Exhibit Opens in the Carnegie Library,” Houston Informer, November 17, 1934.

“Colored Library’s Art Exhibit a Success,” Houston Chronicle, June 3, 1936 [clipping from Carnegie Colored Library scrapbook, Houston Public Library, HMRC].

“Prizes are Awarded in Fourth Annual Art Exhibit,” Houston Informer, June 6, 1936.

“Formal Opening of Art Exhibit Held Sunday Evening at Library,” Houston Informer, July 3, 1937.

Fi h Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1937. RGA0013-B11SB1938-235b, Houston Public Library, HMRC.

NEGRO ART GUILD OF HOUSTON

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NEW DEAL ENTREPRENEURS: THE FORT WORTH ARTISTS GUILD OPENS A GALLERY Sco Grant Barker

In 1937, at the height of the Great Depression, one short stretch of West Tucker Street, south of downtown Fort Worth, channeled a convincing imitation of New York’s Greenwich Village. That was how one out-of-town visitor described the look and feel of this particular two-block section after having seen it.1 Formerly residential but now in transition, this small piece of West Tucker Street was an unexpected hub of Fort Worth cultural life. It was bookended in the 1300 block by the Woman’s Club and in the 1400 block by the rear entrance to the Lucerne Apartments. Between the bookends were buildings housing the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts, the Little Theater (Fort Worth’s

original community theater), the Lois Bookshop, the Louise Hudson School of Dancing, the Jewel Tea Company, and an art gallery at 1414 West Tucker Street known as the Guild Gallery. Operated by the Fort Worth Artists Guild, the gallery was distinguished only by a single door with lettering and some large plate glass windows overlooking the sidewalk. It occupied a storefront that had previously housed a neighborhood grocery store. Though nondescript, the gallery represented, according to one observer, an important entrepreneurial push by local artists trying to make their presence known in a community where support was hard to come by.2

Samuel P. Ziegler, Art Gallery of the Fort Worth Ar sts Guild, 1938, oil on canvas, 18 x 32 inches. Collec on of Dow Art Galleries, Fort Worth, Texas.

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The art gallery of the Fort Worth Artists Guild existed for less than three years, but what a memorable time it was. It debuted in October 19363, a year and nine months after the formation of the guild itself.4 At the time of the gallery’s unveiling, guild members had been eyeing the vacant storefront at 1414 West Tucker Street for over a year and had rented it for an art exhibit on at least one previous occasion.5 Their eagerness to undertake a roll-the-dice retail venture was bolstered by an earlier, less risky foray into the gallery business bankrolled by guild patron Loraine Withington.6 In October 1935, Mrs. Withington had opened a gift shop at 1216 Pennsylvania Avenue, one block east of the Woman’s Club. Eager to assist the guild in any way she could, Mrs. Withington offered to host all future guild exhibits and provide a retail outlet for artworks produced by guild members.

All services were furnished at Mrs. Withington’s expense, and she apparently took no commissions.

Newspaper advertising for her shop was taken out, and in December 1935, to encourage sales, she and the guild instituted a subscription service costing $5 a year which entitled subscribers to take a guild member’s painting home for a month and then either purchase the painting or trade it out for a new work.7 By all accounts, during the year prior to the opening of the guild gallery on West Tucker Street, this unusual partnership between Loraine Withington and members of the Fort Worth Artists Guild was modestly successful.8 The launch of the Guild Gallery on West Tucker Street in October 1936 was well publicized, including some of the early ups and downs. The newspaper reported that the new gallery’s opening date was met only because of “the generosity of the owner of the building in making concessions.”9 A month later, the gallery was forced to close for a week due to a leaking roof.10 Afterwards, the gallery seemed to settle into a more predictable routine with hours of operation set at 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Sallie Blyth Mummert, the first art critic employed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, provided almost weekly mentions of guild and guild gallery activities during the remainder of 1936 and all of 1937. Mrs. Mummert, who was an accomplished painter in her own right, also served as a vice-president of the Fort Worth Artists Guild.

During the fall and spring social seasons the guild made every effort to keep the gallery open from 2:00 to 5:00 PM during the week, but only rarely on weekends.

In the summer months, the hours were typically set at 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Monday through Friday. A succession of guild volunteers was utilized to oversee the gallery and occasionally a single person would step forward to staff the space for several weeks alone.

At no point, however, did the gallery have a sufficient level of staffing to sustain what would be considered “normal” retail hours.

From the beginning, the West Tucker Street gallery was intended to function as both a retail showcase for art and the center of guild activities. Chief among these activities were semiannual, juried exhibitions for members. The Fort Worth Artists Guild differed from other artists’ organizations in the city in that it charged no dues to its members.11 The only requirement for admittance into the guild was the acceptance of one or more pieces of an artist’s work into one of the guild’s juried exhibitions.12 After admittance, an artist was then expected to support the guild’s activities through continued participation and volunteerism. Passing a guild jury was no easy task, however, as the Fort Worth Artists Guild pioneered the concept of three-person independent juries drawn from a pool of qualified art professionals who typically did not live in Fort Worth.

It was the judgment of these art professionals that determined who would be allowed to participate in guild exhibitions and who would not.

A brief look at the jury panels assembled for three of the guild’s juried shows demonstrates the caliber of jurors that the guild sought out: Spring Members Exhibit, March 1936—Olin Travis (Dallas), James Chillman, Jr. (Houston), Mary Marshall (Denton);13 Fall Members Exhibit, 1936—Richard Foster Howard (Dallas), Edmund Daniel Kinzinger (Waco), Marie Delleney (Denton);14 Spring Members Exhibit, March 1937—Dorothy Austin (Dallas), Frank Klepper (McKinney), Coreen Mary Spellman (Denton).15 The guild’s jury system worked so well that reliance on independent jurors who lived outside Fort Worth became the template used by the Fort Worth Art FORT WORTH ARTISTS GUILD

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Association in the 1940s and beyond to assemble most association-sponsored exhibitions involving local artists. This was one of the legacies of the Fort Worth Artists Guild.

As a venue for competitive exhibitions, the guild gallery played host to the fall 1936 juried members’ exhibition. It hosted another well-publicized, juried members’ show in March 1937. A month later, guild members voted to reduce the number of juried exhibitions to one per year.16 This allowed them to undertake a month-long sale of members’ work in December 1937 and take advantage of the Christmas shopping season by delaying the next juried guild exhibit until January 1938.

The $5 a year subscription service which allowed a patron to take a painting home for a month and then trade it for another work was continued after the guild gallery moved from Mrs. Withington’s shop to the West Tucker Street location. Additionally, a new level of patronage was tapped by a program that guaranteed a patron one “free” artwork each year in return for a modest up-front donation to the guild.17 Using this system, the guild cultivated an extensive calling list of potential patrons and received yearly donations from approximately thirty patron members (also known as “lay members”) from 1937 through 1939.18 The list of patron members who donated in order to receive a “free” painting included many of Fort Worth’s most recognizable society wives.19 Other exhibitions took place in 1937, 1938, and 1939 at the West Tucker Street gallery that included an annual exhibition open to all art students in Fort Worth between the ages of 13 and 21, and a popular, yearly children’s exhibition featuring the work of boys and girls 12 years of age and younger.20 The city’s first recorded exhibit of locally-produced abstract art was installed in the guild gallery in February 1938. The three artists who participated, Frank Fisher, Mignon Mastin, and Bror Utter, became trailblazers for their ability to arouse emotion in the viewer using abstract forms “that have never been seen on land or sea.”21 Sallie Blyth Mummert passed away unexpectedly in July 1938 causing an outpouring of grief from all

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corners of the Fort Worth art community. The guild responded by organizing a memorial exhibition of her work and installing it in the guild gallery during the month of October 1938.22 Mrs. Mummert’s weekly art column in the Star-Telegram was ably taken over by Ida Belle Hicks, a no-nonsense writer who continued to closely cover the guild’s activities.

An exhibition of prize-winning prints supplied by distinguished members of the Southern States Art League came to the gallery in November 1938.

A committee of four guild artists was responsible for bringing this print exhibition to Fort Worth. The guild’s seventh juried members’ exhibition, the last to be held at the guild gallery, took place in January 1939, with portraitist Douglas Chandor, Charles Bowling of the Dallas Art Institute, and North Texas Agricultural College art professor Arista Joyner serving as jurors.23 And in what may have been the guild gallery’s most unlikely and most popular exhibit, 35 original watercolors from the Walt Disney Studios were displayed for two weeks in March 1939.

These paintings on celluloid were among the 435,000 paintings required to make Disney’s animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After completion of the film, only 7,000 of the paintings were kept by the studio and, of those, a small number were circulated nationwide for publicity purposes.24 Curious art lovers and fans of the film were asked to pay a small admission fee at the gallery door to view the magical images of Dopey, the Wicked Queen, and Snow White.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram made no mention of exactly when the gallery of the Fort Worth Artists Guild ceased operation. A careful reading of the newspaper record points to the late spring of 1939, after which all mention of the guild gallery vanished from the pages of the Star-Telegram. Over the gallery’s almost three-year existence, the guild had coped with an ongoing shortage of volunteer staffing, an issue that resulted in erratic business hours and short business days. In the summer of 1938, the gallery wasn’t open at all.25 Furthermore, there are no extant records of how the gallery fared as a retail operation. One indicator of the guild’s financial struggles is the effort guild members put forth to offer works of art for sale in venues other than the gallery. To that end, guild

members organized a popular springtime street carnival for several years, and actively exhibited their work in venues that included Colonial Country Club, the Fort Worth Municipal Auditorium, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Home Show, held at Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, among others.

Staffing problems and poor sales were probably not the main reason that the guild gallery went out of business however. The guild was formed in February 1935 out of frustration over the lack of exhibition opportunities for local artists. The original bylaws contained the rationale: “The purpose of this organization shall be to assist, foster and encourage art, artists, and art students in the creation, production and sale of painting, printing, sculpture and skilled decorative arts. The organization shall not be conducted for profit...”26 A particular focus of frustration to the guild’s founders was the restrictive exhibition policy of the Fort Worth Art Association, the group that controlled access to Fort Worth’s most coveted public exhibition space, the art gallery of the Carnegie Public Library. Over its history, the art association, founded in 1910, had done a stellar job of exposing the Fort Worth public to high-end, contemporary American art, but had shown only limited interest in including local art and artists in its yearly programming.

A radical course correction occurred in December 1938 when a revolt among art association members took place, resulting in the dismissal of the association’s original leadership group and the ascension of younger leaders.27 Banker Edwin E. Bewley, brother of portraitist Murray Bewley, became the new art association president. In May of 1939, Bewley announced concrete steps that the association planned to take to encourage regional and local artists going forward.28 From that time on, the association’s focus on the artists of Fort Worth became so similar to that of the artists’ guild that guild members felt compelled to devote their time and energy to the programs of the more well-established group. The first concrete sign of this new alliance was the closing of the guild gallery on West Tucker Street, followed by a letter to the art association, dated May 26, 1939, signaling a new spirit of cooperation on the part of the guild.29

Though it was in operation for less than three years, the art gallery of the Fort Worth Artists Guild made a clear and convincing statement that local artists wanted and deserved to be taken seriously.

That message triggered fundamental changes in the attitude and policies of the Fort Worth Art Association toward local art.30 As the 1930s drew to a close and a new decade dawned, the stage was now set for the rise of the Fort Worth Circle and the age of modernism. Though neither the artists’ guild nor its gallery survived the civic transition from pre-war Fort Worth to post-war Fort Worth, their impact on the community’s cultural growth during a period of deepest economic distress was unmistakably positive and profound.

Scott Grant Barker is a native Texan and cultural historian who specializes in the art history of the City of Fort Worth.

He has contributed to numerous exhibitions and is co-author of Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s, published by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

FORT WORTH ARTISTS GUILD

29

Notes 1. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Texas Artist Exhibition in Progress,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 30, 1937.

2. Edith Alderman Guedry, “Local Artists Seek Market for Their Wares in Newly Established Guild Gallery,” Fort Worth Press, not dated (c. October 25, 1936).

3. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Art and Artists,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 25, 1936.

4. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Fort Worth Artists Organize Guild,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 3, 1935. The guild attracted most of Fort Worth’s top fine artists. Over the organization’s lifespan the office of guild president was filled by Blanche McVeigh, Wade Jolly, Veronica Helfensteller (acting), Sarah Smith, and Marjorie Johnson.

5. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Katherine Dudley’s Child Studies Are Widely Praised,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 12, 1935.

6. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Art Season Begun With Opening of New Gallery for Guild,” Fort Worth StarTelegram, October 6, 1935.

7. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Guild Launches New Plan,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 1, 1935.

8. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Two Art Exhibits at Shops,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 9, 1936.

9. Same as note 3.

10. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artists and Exhibitions,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 29, 1936.

11. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artists Guild to Hold First Meeting,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 24, 1937.

12. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artists and Exhibitions,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, June 21, 1936. See also, “Annual Jury Art Exhibition Opens Jan. 16,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 2, 1938.

13. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Centennial Jury Meets Friday,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 23, 1936.

14. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artists and Exhibits,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 18, 1936.

15. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artists and Exhibitions,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 21, 1937.

16. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Artist Guild Program of Exhibits is Changed,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 11, 1937.

17. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Art Week Observance Ends Today,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 7, 1937.

18. Fort Worth Artists Guild patron membership lists, 1937–1938, 1938–1939. Collection of the author.

19. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Fort Worth’s Artists Guild Will Open Fifth Jury Show,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 7, 1937.

20. Same as note 16.

30

SCOTT GRANT BARKER

21. Sallie Blyth Mummert, “Art Association Receives 8 Original Drawings in Color by E. W. Deming,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 20, 1938.

22. Ida Belle Hicks, “Works of Sallie Blythe (sic) Mummert to Be Exhibited in Guild Gallery,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 2, 1938.

23. Ida Belle Hicks, “Artist Knows Noses and Balks Prettifying Them With Brush,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 8, 1939, Music and Art section, 7 (continued from 6).

24. Ida Belle Hicks, “Color Arrangements on Palettes Novel,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 26, 1939.

25. “Art Gallery Closed for the Summer,” Fort Worth StarTelegram, June 12, 1938.

26. Same as note 11.

27. “E. E. Bewley Chosen Head Of Art Body,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 13, 1938.

28. Ida Belle Hicks, “Texas Art, Producing Artists to Receive Aid by Revived Association, President Announces,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 14, 1939.

29. Resa C. Oglesby, “History of the Fort Worth Art Association” (master’s thesis, Texas Woman’s University, 1950), 95. The letter was written by Blanche McVeigh on behalf of the guild.

30. Oglesby, “History of the Fort Worth Art Association,” 91.

Members of the Fort Worth Ar sts Guild, 1935–1941 Ashmore, Rose (Mrs. Frank A. Ashmore) Bailey, Beatrice S. Bailey, Sannie Sue Baker, Ora Lee Phelps (Mrs. William Henry Baker) Baker, William Henry Balfour, Arthur J. Behrend, Ella Beall (Mrs. Lee Behrend) Briles, Worthy Harwood Brown (Mrs. J. Montgomery Brown) Bullock, Mary Jane McLean (Mrs. Kenneth K. Bullock) Caldwell, Catherine Click, O’Bera Counts, Zada Davis, Zoe Dickson, Lillian Ruth Durham (Mrs. Henry M. Dickson)

Dow, Nell Pierce (Mrs. Percy Dow)

Nesbit, Florence

East, Pattie Richardson (Mrs. Norman H. East)

O’Neal, Frances Ann

Eberhardt, Eugenia McCorkle (Mrs. H. Clyde Eberhardt)

Orren, Raymon

Estill, Nell Gene

Patterson, Helena (Mrs. John T. Patterson)

Farrow, Susie Olivia

Pevehouse (Mrs. F. W. Pevehouse)

Fisher, Frank Preston, Jr.

Reeder, Edward Dickson

Francis, Muriel Wilkins (Mrs. Harry W. Francis)

Richhart, Marie Lucille Girdwood (Mrs. Clarence L. Richhart)

Freeman, Margaret

Robinson, Thelma Victoria

Fritz, Eleanor Virginia B. (Mrs. E. B. Fritz)

Salt, Anastasia Royer (Mrs. William Frederick Salt)

George, Mildred

Sanders, (Hedwyn) Mayme Moore (Mrs. Arthur Sanders)

Giles, Frederick Parker

Schow, May

Golden, Mary Lou (Mrs. Charles H. Golden)

Sellors, Evaline Clarke

Griffin, Ruth (Mrs. R. P. Griffin)

Smith, Emily Elizabeth Guthrie (Mrs. Tolbert C. Smith)

Harvin, Claudia

Smith, Sarah Margaret

Harwell, Jerry, III

Sparger, Anna Bell

Helfensteller, Veronica (Mrs. Haakon J. Ogle)

Sprague, Harold Greene

High, Lettie J. (Mrs. Thomas L. High)

Stockdale, Alice

Hoadley, Edna

Tocker, Barbara

Hotvedt, Clarence Arnold

Trammell, Mildred M. Twinning (Mrs. David B. Trammell)

Howard, Dorcas L. (Mrs. A. E. Howard)

Utter, Bror Alexander

Jez, Louise (Mrs. Henry J. Jez)

Weber, Edith L. (Mrs. John E. Weber)

Johnson, Lillian

Welch, Marie

Johnson, Marjorie E.

Witherspoon, Mary Eleanor

Jolly, Wade Lytton

Yarbrough, Vivian Sloan (Mrs. Tom B. Yarbrough)

Jones, Mabel Thorpe

Ziegler, Samuel Peters

Jones, Nancy Lawrence, Kathleen (Mrs. Clifton H. Lawrence) Littlejohn, Margaret Martin Luke, Ray H. McKinney, Ena (Mrs. George C. McKinney) McLean, Christina (honorary member) McVeigh, Blanche Mahaffey, Margery Josephine Vaughn (Mrs. Mark Mahaffey) Mastin, Mignon W. (Mrs. Bate Mastin) Monk, Mattie Lou (Mrs. Bert D. Monk) Montgomery, Juanita

Sources Original Fort Worth Artists Guild membership lists from the estate of guild member Juanita Lynn Montgomery Gilbert (1913–1997)—collection of the author. For ease of cross reference, the spelling of most names in the above list conforms to spellings appearing in John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors & Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas before 1942 (Austin: Woodmont, 2000).

Morris, Gertrude Mummert, Sallie Blyth

SGB 5/31/17

FORT WORTH ARTISTS GUILD

31

32

GALLERY

Facing page: Myrtle Stedman, Beulah Ayars, and Grace Spaulding John at easel, Houston Ar sts Gallery, BeaconsďŹ eld Apartment Building, c. 1931. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

33

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Growth, c. 1934, oil on canvas, 59 11/16 x 41 9/16 inches.

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

34

GALLERY

Grace Spaulding John, Pa erns: Portrait of Ruth Pershing Uhler, 1932, oil on canvas, 59⅝ x 53⅝ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gi of Patricia John Keightley and John Spaulding John, 98.315 © Estate of Grace Spaulding John. Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, 1930s.

GALLERY

35

Grace Spaulding John, [Portrait of] Ruth Pershing Uhler, 1930s, oil on canvas, 20 x 18 inches.

Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

36

GALLERY

Samuel Countee, Mother, 1930s, oil on canvas, 36 x 24 inches. Collec on of Jacqueline Whi ng Bos c, Houston.

GALLERY

37

Carden Bailey, Portrait [of Hugh J. Mangum III], 1930s, oil on canvas, 13 x 11 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

38

GALLERY

Beulah Schiller Ayars, Negro Girl, c. 1934, oil on canvas, 24 x 20â…› inches. Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

GALLERY

39

Belle Heaps, Portrait [of woman], 1941, oil on canvas, 32¼ x 24¾ inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

40

GALLERY

Robert C. Joy, Portrait of L. L., 1934, oil on canvas, 30⅛ x 25⅛ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 11th Annual Houston Ar sts Exhibi on, museum purchase prize, 1935, 35.1 © Estate of Robert Joy.

GALLERY

41

Beulah Schiller Ayars, She is I, c. 1937, oil on canvas, 24â…› x 20 inches. PanhandlePlains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

42

GALLERY

Emma Richardson Cherry, Un tled [BeaconsďŹ eld nude drawing], 1931, graphite on paper, 13½ x 9 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

GALLERY

43

[a ributed to] William M. McVey, Un tled [female figure], 1930s, bronze, 8¾ x 3½ x 2 inches.

Collec on of Shirley and Don Rose, Houston.

44

GALLERY

Beulah Schiller Ayars, Un tled [nude], c. 1931, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

GALLERY

45

William M. McVey, William Ward Watkin, 1938, bronze, 11 x 6½ x 7 inches. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

William Ward Watkin with bronze sculpture of himself by his student, William McVey, c. 1938.

Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

46

GALLERY

William M. McVey, Un tled, c. 1937, plaster, 20¼ x 25⅜ x 1⅞ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2005.37.

GALLERY

47

Samuel Countee, The Harpist, 1934, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches. Collec on of Jacqueline Whi ng Bos c, Houston. Awarded 1st prize, Fourth Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1936.

48

GALLERY

Samuel Countee, My Guitar, 1936, oil on canvas, 46 x 36 inches. Collec on of Sam and Juli Stevens, San Antonio. Exhibited, Hall of Negro Life, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

GALLERY

49

Elizabeth Morris, Texas Magnolias, 1936, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston. Exhibited, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Building, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

50

GALLERY

Beulah Schiller Ayars, S ll Life [magnolias], c. 1932, oil on board, 19½ x 15½ inches. Collec on of David Lackey and Russell Prince, Houston.

Ma e Wier, Un tled [magnolia], 1930s, oil on board, 12 x 9 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

GALLERY

51

Bertha Louise Hellman, Un tled [magnolia blossom series], 1930s, linocut, 5Âź x 5Âź inches. Collec on of Dave Walling and Leonard McDonald, Houston.

52

GALLERY

Ruby Stone Markham, Un tled [s ll life], n. d., oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Collec on of Tom and Tam Kiehnhoff, Houston.

GALLERY

53

Emma Richardson Cherry, S ll Life [zinnias in blue glass pitcher on round Mexican table], 1930s, oil on canvas, 21 x 19 inches. Permanent Collec on of The Heritage Society, Houston.

54

GALLERY

Virgie Claxton, Nolde-esque S ll Life, n. d., oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches.

Courtesy of William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston.

Virgie Claxton, Floral S ll Life, n. d., oil on board, 20½ x 17½ inches. Courtesy of William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston.

GALLERY

55

Ola McNeill Davidson, Nocturne, 1930s, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 inches. Collec on of Rie Davidson Congelio, Houston.

56

GALLERY

Beulah Schiller Ayars, Spider Lilies, c. 1933, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

Ruth Pershing Uhler, White Iris, 1930, oil on canvas, 30 x 23 inches. Collec on of Linda and Bill Reaves, Houston.

GALLERY

57

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Spider Lilies, c. 1932, oil on canvas, 23½ x 19½ inches. Houston Public Library Collec on, City of Houston. Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, 1930s.

58

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Yuccas, early 1930s, oil on canvas pasted to board, 29½ x 24 inches. Collec on of Mary Binder, Corpus Chris .

GALLERY

59

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythms No. 2, c. 1930, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches. Albri on Collec on, Dallas.

60

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythms No. 3, 1936, oil on canvas, 25¼ x 30⅜ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 12th Annual Houston Ar sts Exhibi on, museum purchase prize, 1936, 36.2 © Estate of Ruth Pershing Uhler.

GALLERY

61

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythm #4, 1935, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Collec on of Margaret and Don Deal, Kerrville.

Label on reverse of Earth Rhythm #4 by Ruth Pershing Uhler, 1935. Collec on of Margaret and Don Deal, Kerrville.

62

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythms, n. d., oil on canvas, 15 x 19½ inches. Collec on of Mark and Geralyn Kever, McKinney.

GALLERY

63

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythms Turquoise Mines/New Mexico, 1936, oil on board, 20 x 30 inches.

Collec on of Konrad Shields and Wes Miller.

64

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Earth Rhythm #5 [dark tones], c. 1930, oil on masonite, 20 x 24 inches. Collec on of Nathan and Stephanie Deal, Bellaire.

GALLERY

65

Virgie Claxton, Un tled [landscape], 1930s, oil on board, 10 x 12 inches.

Collec on of David Lackey and Russell Prince, Houston.

Virgie Claxton, Hill Country Landscape, n. d., oil on canvas, 18 x 20½ inches. Courtesy of William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston.

66

GALLERY

Ola McNeill Davidson, Church of God, 1936, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. Collec on of Rie Davidson Congelio, Houston.

GALLERY

67

Ola McNeill Davidson, Un tled [giant callas], 1930s, oil on canvas, 19 x 23 inches.

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

68

GALLERY

Grace Spaulding John, Oleanders, early 1930s, oil on canvas, 24 x 28 inches. Collec on of Ted and Nancy Paup, Fort Worth. Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, 1930s.

GALLERY

69

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Flamingos, c. 1930, oil on canvas, 30¾ x 40¼ inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gi of Alice C. Simkins in memory of Alice N. Hanszen, 99.434 © Estate of Ruth Pershing Uhler.

Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, 1930s.

70

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Decora on: Red Haw Trees, November, 1932, oil on canvas, 40 x 52 inches. Collec on of Bobbie and John Nau, Houston.

GALLERY

71

Jewel Woodard Simon, The Stream, c. 1930, oil on board, 12 x 16 inches. Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.

72

GALLERY

Ruth Pershing Uhler, Willows, c. 1931, oil on burlap, 20¼ x 15⅞ inches. Collec on of Mary Binder, Corpus Chris . Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, Beaconsfield Apartment Building, 1931. This pain ng can be seen in the photograph of the Houston Ar sts Gallery on the front cover of this publica on.

GALLERY

73

Ola McNeill Davidson, Dead Live Oak, 1931, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches. Collec on of David Lackey and Russell Prince, Houston.

74

GALLERY

Virgie Claxton, Old Olive Tree—Island of Mallorca, 1932, oil on canvas, 29¼ x 24½ inches.

Collec on of Ann Richardson Atkinson, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Exhibited, Houston Ar sts Gallery, c. 1932.

GALLERY

75

Frederic Browne, Chauvigny, France, 1936, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches. Collec on of Linda and Bill Reaves, Houston. Exhibited, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Building, Texas Centennial, Dallas, 1936.

76

GALLERY

Frederic Browne, Trees in Hermann Park, n. d., oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches. Collec on of Bobbie and John Nau, Houston.

GALLERY

77

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Galveston, 1932, colored crayon on paper, 10 x 15 inches. Collec on of Pat and Frank Nelson, Hunt, and Pam and Will Harte, Fort Davis.

78

GALLERY

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Red Lead, 1932, watercolor on wove paper, 18 7/8 x 25 13/16 inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 9th Annual Houston Ar sts Exhibi on, museum purchase prize, 1933, 33.2.

GALLERY

79

William J. Houliston Jr., Rese lement, c. 1937, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 13th Annual Houston Ar sts Exhibi on, museum purchase prize, 1937, 37.6.

80

GALLERY

Grace Spaulding John, Wings, Wind and Waves, 1930s, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches. Collec on of Mark and Geralyn Kever, McKinney.

GALLERY

81

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Main Street Viaduct, 1932, colored crayon on paper, 10¼ x 13¾ inches.

Collec on of Leila and Henri Gadbois, Houston.

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, McKinney Ave., 1932, colored crayon on paper, 12 x 15½ inches.

Collec on of Pat and Frank Nelson, Hunt, and Pam and Will Harte, Fort Davis.

82

GALLERY

William McKenna, Main Street Viaduct, 1938, watercolor, 20 x 14 inches.

Collec on of Leila and Henri Gadbois, Houston.

GALLERY

83

Grace Spaulding John, Negro House on Dowling Street, Fi h Ward, n. d., oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches. Houston Public Library Collec on, City of Houston.

84

GALLERY

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Monday Morning on Dowling Street, 1931, watercolor, 12 x 17½ inches.

Collec on of Lias J. (Jeff) Steen, Houston.

Emily Langham, Houston Backyard, n. d., oil on canvas, 10 x 14½ inches. Collec on of Linda and Bill Reaves, Houston.

GALLERY

85

Edward Muegge (Buck) Schiwetz, Un tled [headed to town in rain], n. d., lithograph, 9 x 13½ inches. Collec on of Pat and Frank Nelson, Hunt, and Pam and Will Harte, Fort Davis.

Jack S. Pagan, Un tled [Texas highway], 1939, watercolor, 9½ x 13½ inches.

Collec on of Randy Tibbits and Rick Bebermeyer, Houston.

86

GALLERY

Ha e V. Palmer, Un tled [Galveston], c. 1929, oil on canvas, 24 x 32 inches. Collec on of Linda and Bill Reaves, Houston.

GALLERY

87

INDEX Gallery artwork listed by artist.

Ayars, Beulah Schiller (American, 1869‒1960) Negro Girl, 39 She is I, 42 Spider Lilies, 57 Still Life [magnolias], 51 Untitled [nude], 45 Bailey, Carden (American, 1911‒1997) Portrait [of Hugh J. Mangum III], 38 Browne, Frederic (Irish, 1877‒1966) Chauvigny, France, 8; 76 Trees in Hermann Park, 77 Cherry, Emma Richardson (American, 1859‒1954) Still Life [zinnias in blue glass pitcher on round Mexican table], 54 Untitled [Beaconsfield nude drawing], 43 Claxton, Virgie (American, 1876‒1953) Floral Still Life, 55 Hill Country Landscape, 66 Nolde-esque Still Life, 55 Old Olive Tree—Island of Mallorca, 75 Untitled [landscape], 66 Countee, Samuel Albert (American, 1909‒1959) Mother, 23; 37 My Guitar, 8; 49 The Harpist, 22; 48 Davidson, Ola McNeill (American, 1884‒1976) Church of God, 67 Dead Live Oak, 74 Nocturne, 56 Untitled [giant callas], 68 Heaps, Belle (American, 1888‒1983) Portrait [of woman], 40 Hellman, Bertha Louise (American, 1869‒1960) Untitled [magnolia blossom series], 52 Houliston, William J. Jr. (American, 1908‒1979) Resettlement, 80 John, Grace Spaulding (American, 1890‒1972) [portrait of] Ruth Pershing Uhler, 36 Negro House on Dowling Street, Fifth Ward, 84 Oleanders, 69 Patterns: Portrait of Ruth Pershing Uhler, 35 Wings, Wind and Waves, 81

88

Joy, Robert C. (American, 1910‒1993) Portrait of L. L., 41 Langham, Emily (American, 1894‒1983) Houston Backyard, 85 Markham, Ruby Stone (American, 1898‒1993) Untitled [still life], 53 McKenna, William (American, 20th Century) Main Street Viaduct, 83 McVey, William M. (American, 1905‒1995) [attributed] Untitled [female figure], 44 Untitled, 47 William Ward Watkin, 46 Morris, Elizabeth (American, 1887‒1960) Texas Magnolias, 8; 50 Pagan, Jack S. (Scottish, 1904‒1994) Untitled [Texas highway], 86 Palmer, Hattie V. (American, 1866‒1933) Untitled [Galveston], 87 Schiwetz, Edward Muegge (Buck) (American, 1898‒1984) Galveston, 78 Main Street Viaduct, 82 McKinney Ave., 82 Monday Morning on Dowling Street, 85 Red Lead, 79 Untitled [headed to town in rain], 86 Simon, Jewel Woodard (American 1911‒1996) The Stream, iv; 23; 72 Uhler, Ruth Pershing (American, 1895‒1967) Decoration: Red Haw Trees, November, 71 Earth Rhythms, 63 Earth Rhythms No. 2, 60 Earth Rhythms No. 3, 9; 61 Earth Rhythm #4, 62 Earth Rhythm #5 [dark tones], 65 Earth Rhythms Turquoise Mines/New Mexico, 64 Flamingos, 70 Growth, 34 Spider Lilies, 58 White Iris, 57 Willows, inside front cover; 73 Yuccas, 59 Wier, Mattie (American, 20th Century) Untitled [magnolia], 51

Grace Spaulding John seated by ďŹ replace in her studio, Houston, 1931. Courtesy of Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston.

Back cover: Program, Sixth Annual Art Exhibit, Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, 1938. RGA0013-B11-SB1938-231a1, Houston Public Library, HMRC.