I like women. And I like Women's History Month. I am also keen on Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and all the other group-specific heritage commemorations. They serve to remind us of the people who have been marginalized in chronicling our common heritage.
Today I am taking a look at three Arkansas female artists, representatives of a surprisingly large number of Arkansas women who have contributed to the artistic culture of our state and nation.
The first female Arkansan to gain national recognition for her art was Jenny Eakin Delony Rice. She was born in the historic town of Washington, the Hempstead County seat, in 1866, just as Arkansas was emerging from the throes of the Civil War. Her father was A.T. Delony, a businessman, lawyer, and educator. Her mother, Elizabeth Lawson Pearson Delony, was a teacher. After first relocating to Nashville in Howard County, the family settled in Little Rock.
Young Jenny Delony attended Wesleyan Female Institute in Staunton, Va., winning gold medals in art and music. She then attended Cincinnati Academy of Art, followed by two years of studying in Paris, followed by a stint in Venice. According to Linda Hastings Baker, who has written a master's thesis on Delony, "In 1896, the first year women were admitted to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, she entered as one of the historic firsts ..."
Delony established her first professional art studio in Little Rock in 1891. She was soon teaching art in Virginia, followed by becoming the first director of art for Arkansas Industrial University, the predecessor to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. At the UA, Delony established the state's first baccalaureate art program.
In 1900, Delony established a studio in New York. She exhibited at various venues, including the National Academy of Arts. Her portrait of Hetty Green, called "the richest woman in America," was featured in The New York Times. That portrait is now part of the large Arkansas art collection held by Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, while the Arkansas State Archives has several of her portraits of political leaders.
Delony was married twice. Her first husband, Nathaniel J. Price of Denver, died after two years of marriage. A second marriage ended after a brief time, and she kept her first husband's name. She died in April 1949.
More Arkansans should know the name Natalie Smith Henry because she painted a superb mural in 1939 for the Springdale Post Office.
Henry was born Jan. 4, 1907, at Malvern, the county seat of Hot Spring County. Her father, Samuel E. Henry, was the circuit clerk and later county judge. Her mother died early. Professor Gayle M. Seymour of the University of Central Arkansas, who authored the entry on Natalie Henry for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, believes that Natalie "channeled her grief into creative activity," which included enrolling in an illustration correspondence course.
After attending Galloway College for women in Searcy for one year, Henry moved to Chicago where she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1935 she began exhibiting nationally, and the following year her work was accepted in the International Water Color Exhibition, competing against pioneering modern artists such as Kandinsky and Hopper.
Professor Seymour has written that "like many American artists who received their training during the Depression era, Henry worked in the realistic style, emphasizing firm contour lines, clearly described volumes, and recognizable narrative imagery." She painted "figural scenes, portraits, landscapes, and still life." She also did considerable wood block printing. Thus, Natalie Henry was well prepared to paint a large mural for the Springdale post office.
Henry titled her mural Local Industries, though it actually features the agricultural attributes of a town surrounded by orchards, well-kept farms, and a nascent poultry industry. It connotes what Professor Seymour described as "a reassuring vision of peace and prosperity." The mural now hangs at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale.
In 1985 Henry retired to Malvern, though she continued to paint and exhibit her work. Dying in 1992, Henry was buried in Oak Ridge/Shadowlawn Cemetery in Malvern.
Josephine Graham of Little Rock was one of the most prolific artists in modern Arkansas. Born in Newport, Jackson County, on April 12, 1915, to cotton broker Thomas Hutson and Mary Bailey Hutson, Josephine attended the University of Texas and the University of Arkansas, where she took an English degree.
Graham did not begin painting seriously until later in life. She studied at the University of Colorado art school, where she received an art degree. She then studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received an MFA degree with high honors in 1961. She also spent time at the Parsons School of Design in New York, and studied sculpture at the New York Art Students League.
Graham had her first exhibit in 1962 at the Explorer Gallery in New York, exhibiting 30 architectural studies--including the well-known Jackson Square No. 2. Thomas A. Teeter of Little Rock, the author of the entry on Graham and several other artists in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, believes that "the people and stories of Newport and the White River region inspired her work and were often the subject matter of her paintings of rural Arkansas life."
She was especially interested in painting the "suggin" people of her childhood. The term was used to describe, according to Graham, "a somewhat uncouth and unsophisticated person living in a rural area or small town along the White River."
Thomas Teeter believes that much of Graham's recognition derives from her "authentic primitive works."
It is ironic that an artist with a classical art education would find that it was her primitive works that would earn her a place in art history.
Graham had a great sense of humor, much of which came through in her paintings. She acknowledged that subjects of her portraits always look youthful, commenting that she "always painted portraits in Oil of Olay."
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 03/24/2019