Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (Active Before 1945)
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Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945) Compiled by Susan V. Craig, Art & Architecture Librarian Univ. of Kansas August 2006 1 This book began with a 1981 reference question about John Noble, a name I did not recognize despite having studied art history and worked as an art librarian for more than 10 years. Learning that John Noble was a Kansas artist, I went looking for the best available book on Kansas art only to learn the resources were few. As a new faculty member at the Univ. of Kansas, I needed to establish a research project so I decided to prepare a dictionary of Kansas artists thus fulfilling both the research requirement and educating myself about the history of the visual arts in my native state; I just didn't intend the project to take 25 years or realize that I would have more than 1750 entries in the dictionary. I began by defining the scope of the work: • "Kansas artist" was loosely defined as artists who were both born in the state as well as artists who were born elsewhere but were artistically active in Kansas. Under this latter definition, I included artists who produced significant artworks such as the murals installed in Kansas post offices. Occasionally, artists who lived or worked primarily in Kansas City, MO may be included. I did not deliberately include all Kansas City artists but neither did I exclude them if the name came from a Kansas source such as the Kansas State Gazetteer. • Another choice I made was to look for artists who were artistically active before 1945. I didn't adhere to a specific "born before" date but did not include artists who did not become artistically active until after World War II. • A third choice was the definition of artist and, in this case, my definition was broad. There is an emphasis on artists who worked with paint, print making, and sculpture but I did not eliminated china painters, woodworkers, quilters, metalworkers, illustrators, cartoonists, or other craftsmen. When I began work on the project in 1981, another faculty member was compiling a directory of Kansas photographers so I consciously avoided artists who were solely active as photographers. Unfortunately that work was never completed and I have been unable to retrieve it to include here. Likewise, I made no attempt to include architects who did not pursue other visual arts. My search for Kansas artists revealed some important resources that formed the foundation of names. Edna Reinbach (1891-1980), a librarian at the Kansas State Historical Society, produced a compilation of Kansas artists in 1928 that was published in volume 17 of the Kansas Historical Collections. I discovered unpublished manuscripts by Lydia Sain of Lawrence who spent 33 years from 1915-1948 compiling Kansas Artists after visiting an exhibition in Emporia, and Gertrude Newlin, another Lawrence resident, who prepared The Development of Art in Kansas (1951). I also searched city and county directories, checked published dictionaries of American artists, wrote to colleges and universities around the state, visited numerous libraries and archives to examine scrapbooks and clipping files, perused individual monographs on artists and on art groups, and, in more recent years, used Internet resources to supplement the entries. The comprehensive text on Art in Kansas has yet to be published but, in the 25 years since I started my quest, progress has been made. Entries in the dictionary vary in length and depth. For some artists that I discovered through a city directory, the entry may simply include the artist's name, flourished date and place, the fact they called themselves--at least in the city directory--an artist, and the source of the information. Other entries may include complete names, birth place and 2 date, death date and place, artistic medium, education, biographical facts, memberships, exhibition records, awards, collections that own the artist's work, and sources for the information. Such sources may include one or more exhibition catalog or monograph on the artist. Other sources are abbreviated and full bibliographic information is found in the source list following the dictionary. One convention that I used was to not add KS to identify all the Kansas towns. If the town name is not followed by a state abbreviation and is not an easily recognized city, e.g. New York, Los Angeles, Paris, then the reader can assume the town is in Kansas. As the work progressed, I started compiling not only the names of artists but also beginning to trace the history of some of the art associations and institutions within Kansas. Appended to the dictionary I include a list of sources consulted, lists of art associations, public art collections, art schools, serial exhibitions within the region, and a list of state-by-state dictionaries of artists. This work is not “complete” and likely never will be. Each new resource reveals new facts, new dates, or new names to be added but it is time to share the information with a broader audience. I encourage users of the dictionary to send corrections and additions to me at [email protected] so the next version will be more accurate. Susan Craig, Aug. 10, 2006 Acknowledgements My thanks and admiration to all the librarians and archivists who had the foresight to collect and retain the information that was critical to this project and to the libraries who continue to make the resources available. My thanks also to the authors who compiled the early directories and wrote articles about the visual arts in Kansas. I am grateful for the help provided by my colleagues at the Univ. of Kansas libraries and especially the staffs in the Art & Architecture Library, the Spencer Research Library, and Interlibrary Services. Special acknowledgment to student library employees Juliette Renault, Lisa Dibbern, Darci Hanna, Mason Pine, and Jessica Ogborn who, during the summer of 2005, helped revive the project which had been literally shelved in the attic for 15 years by translating my handwritten scribbles and notes from 4X6 cards into MS Word. I also acknowledge the New Faculty Grant received from KU in 1982 and the Sabbatical Leave in 1990 which helped to support the work. 3 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 You are free: • to copy, distribute, and display the work Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. • For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. • Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license). Disclaimer 4 Common Abbreviations: AL = Alabama MT = Montana AK = Alaska NC = North Carolina AR = Arkansas ND = North Dakota Assoc. = Assoc. NE = Nebraska AZ = Arizona NH = New Hampshire b.= born NJ = New Jersey CA = California NM = New Mexico CO = Colorado NY = New York CT = Connecticut NV = Nevada d.= died OH = Ohio DC = District of Columbia OK = Oklahoma DE = Delaware OR = Oregon fl. = flourished PA = Pennsylvania FL = Florida PR = Puerto Rico GA = Georgia Pres.= President HI = Hawaii RI = Rhode Island ID = Idaho SC = South Carolina IA = Iowa SD = South Dakota IL =Illinois Secr. = Secretary IN = Indiana Spec. = Specialty KS = Kansas TN =Tennessee KY = Kentucky Treas.= Treasurer LA = Louisiana TX = Texas MA = Massachusetts UT =Utah MD = Maryland Vice-Pres. = Vice-President ME = Maine VA = Virginal MI = Michigan VT = Vermont MO = Missouri WA = Washington MN = Minnesota WI = Wisconsin MS = Mississippi WV = West Virginia WY = Wyoming 5 Dictionary of Kansas Artists A Abert, James William. b. Mount Holly, NJ, Nov. 18, 1820; d. Newport, KY, Aug. 19, 1897. Draughtsman. Graduate of Princeton Univ. and U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers who illustrated his 1846-47 trip from Fort Leavenworth to New Mexico. Taught drawing at West Point, served with the Army Corps of Engineers, operated a mercantile business in Cincinnati, OH, and taught English literature at the Univ. of Missouri. Abert’s work has been reprinted in books such as, Through the Country of the Comanche Indians in the Fall of the Year 1845:The Journal of a U.S. Army Expedition Led by Lieutenant James W. Abert of the Topographical Engineers, Artist Extraordinary Whose Paintings of Indians and their Wild West Illustrate this Book (San Francisco: J. Howell, 1970), Western America in 1846- 1847:The Original Travel Diary of Lieutenant J.W. Abert, Who Mapped New Mexico for the United States Army (San Francisco: J. Howell, 1966), and Expedition to the Southwest: An 1845 reconnaissance of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1999). Collections: Fred Rosenstock Collection, Columbia, MO; Thomas Streeter Collection, Morristown, NJ. Dawdy; Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/fab11.html , accessed July 22, 2005. Abrams, Lucien. b. Lawrence, June 10, 1870; d. New Haven, CT, Apr. 14, 1941. Painter, spec. landscape, portrait, and still life. Architect. Born into a wealthy Lawrence family, he moved with his family to Dallas, TX in 1873 and attended schools there. Graduate of Princeton in 1892 and student at the Arts Students League in New York. Went abroad in 1894 and studied at Academié Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and with Benjamin Constant, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Exhibited at the Paris Salons while painting in Belgium, Italy, Spain, and France.