Making the unknown known: women in early Texas art, 1860s-1960s

Abstract

"In Making the Unknown Known, leading scholars throughout Texas explore the significant role women artists played in developing early Texas art from the nineteenth century through the latter part of the twentieth century. The biographies presented here allow readers to compare these women’s experiences across time as they negotiated the gendered expectations about artists in society at large and the Texas art community itself. Surveying the contributions women made to the visual arts in the Lone Star state, Making the Unknown Known analyzes women’s artistic work with respect to geographic and historical connections. Including surveys of the work of artists such as Louise Wüste, Emma Richardson Cherry, Eleanor Onderdonk, Grace Spaulding John, and others, it offers a groundbreaking assessment of the role women artists have played in interpreting the meaning, history, heritage, and unique character of Texas. It places women artists within the larger social and cultural contexts in which they lived. In that regard, it contains an analysis of their varied styles of art, the media they employed, and the subject matter contained in their art. It thus evaluates the contributions made by women artists to defining the nature of the wider Texas experience as an American region. Beautifully illustrated throughout with rich, full-color reproductions of the works created by the artists, this volume provides an enriched understanding of the important but underappreciated role women artists have played in the development of the fine arts in Texas. At last, the unknown story can be known.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Part One: Female Artists across Texas -- Texas Women Artists of the Nineteenth Century / Sam D. Ratcliffe -- Female Artists in San Antonio and Austin / Light Townsend Cummins -- Women Artists in Dallas: The Regionalist Impulse / Francine Carraro -- A Woman's Concern: Art in Houston before World War II / Randolph Tibbits -- The Rebels of Tucker Street: Women Artists of the Fort Worth Circle (1930-1950) / Scott Grant Barker -- Out from Under Georgia's Shadow: Women Artists of West Texas / Michael R. Grauer -- Female Artists, Modernism, and Abstract Art in Texas / Light Townsend Cummins -- Pioneers in Modernism: Women Artists at the College of Industrial Arts (Texas Woman's University) / D. Jack Davis -- Women Participating in Federally Funded Art Programs (1933-1943) / Victoria Hennessey Cummins -- Part Two: Biographies of Representative Female Artists -- Louise Heuser Wüste (1805-1874) / Kenneth Hafertepe -- Elisabet Ney (1833-1907) / Kenneth Hafertepe -- Emma Richardson Cherry (1859-1954) / Randolph Tibbits -- Eleanor Rogers Onderdonk (1884-1964) / Amy Fulkerson -- Mary Anita Bonner (1887-1935) / Light Townsend Cummins -- Sallie Mummert (1888-1938) / Scott Grant Barker -- Grace Spaulding John (1890-1972) / Eleanor Barton -- Waldine Amanda Tauch (1892-1986) / Richard B. McCaslin -- Florence Elliot White McClung (1894-1972) / Michael R. Grauer -- Kathleen Blackshear (1897-1988) / Victoria Hennessey Cummins -- Dorothy Antoinette LaSelle (1901-2002) / Sarah Beth Wilson -- Coreen Mary Spellman (1905-1978) / D. Jack Davis -- Contributors.