Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2009 - (Page 17) called the participants “vital personalities in forming the artistic The scene shifts. It is January 28, and Josephine is the guest of consciousness in their states.” honor at the annual Benjamin Prize reception. Rue Kerlerec is the Girl Under Mosquito Net, Josephine’s large, horizontal painting of winner. Charles Bein, head of the art school (and an accomplished a nude, was packed up for New York and exhibited in the Second watercolorist), announces the $250 prize; the judges are Juanita National Exhibition of American Art. Presenting “a cross-section of Gonzales, Mrs. Alex Leonhardt, and Enrique Alférez. Friends have the creative art of this country,” the show ran from June 16 to July gathered to toast Josephine: Sarah Henderson, George Westfeldt, 31, 1937, at the American Fine Arts Society Galleries on West 57th Richard Koch, and artist Xavier Gonzalez And where is the Street. All of the states (and U.S. subject of the prize-winning work? The possessions and territories) were invited to Creole widow — besides existing in send paintings and sculptures that “truly Josephine’s mind — could be sitting on represent the expression of their artists.” her porch on Kerlerec Street, where it The national committee allotted Louisiana angles off Frenchmen just below eight oil paintings and one piece of Esplanade Avenue — the area of town sculpture. Ellsworth Woodward, Hunt beyond the French Quarter known as the Henderson, and chairman John S. Ankeney Faubourg Marigny. of the LSU fine arts department, among A columnist praised the restraint in others, judged the competition that artists Josephine’s Rue Kerlerec: “With limited entered by invitation. Familiar names in color she has achieved in the painting of the New Orleans art world of the 1930s the Creole widow both a pathos and exhibited along with Josephine: Conrad humor.” Restraint was also the keynote of Albrizio, Caroline Durieux, Xavier Evelyn Witherspoon’s newspaper column, Gonzalez, Clarence Millet, Paul Ninas, Will “Arts and Crafts Club”: Henry Stevens. The supporters of the Arts “She [the widow] is the essence of a very and Crafts Club could point to these artists dear and very remote New Orleanian.… The and their association with the club as simplicity of the composition, the boldness measures of success and the restraint in handling the color say In 1940 the club mailed invitations to a more than any detail — and such color … a Magnolias by Josephine Crawford, 1936, oil on canvas, one-man show featuring an Arts and harmony of warm and cold gray, cream and 1 25 ⁄16” x 21”; courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection, Crafts favorite: Josephine. This was, black gray — a very happy symphony.” bequest of Charles C. Crawford perhaps, the high point of her career Witherspoon concluded that the 1934 Josephine was 62 when the show opened [on March 3, 1940], competition was “one of the best” in years, and — a testament to 63 in December, and so brought a lifetime of experience to her art. Josephine’s standing in the art community — no one was Imagine her standing near the gallery door of the club. She warmly disgruntled with her selection. Josephine was in the company of a greets everyone who comes to the opening reception. Her manner distinguished coterie: Charles Hutson, Jane Ninas, John McCrady, is engaging with a hint of shyness It is a fine moment for an Paul Ninas, Clarence Millet, Clayre Barr, Herbert Frère, Marcelle artist who came late to painting. She has pleased the critics. Peret, and Dr. Marion Souchon, among others. One review described Josephine’s use of smooth, very thin paint Josephine came into her own in the mid-1930s. The success of and her efforts to achieve what Rue Kerlerec hints at a special she conceived painting to be: sympathy between artist and “the covering of a flat surface subject. Josephine’s with an ornamental design.” background made her People are patterns, flowers are uniquely suited to capture a shapes — objects broken down disappearing Creole world. to their basic forms. There is And this she did in the person sophistication in the simplified of the little widow in stiff widow of Rue Kerlerec — “a mourning veil, bombazine delicate and understanding skirt, palm-leaf fan, and parasol character reading.” Josephine “whom we might see any day placed white over white in Girl on Esplanade Avenue or Under Mosquito Net. Grays, Kerlerec Street.” tans, and off-whites are her emblematic colors; the paintings, static and quiet. The Arts and Crafts Club had given Josephine its highest honor. Now she would see her In spring 1941, a selection work appreciated by an artistic of contemporary American art community that reached Girl Under Mosquito Net by Josephine Crawford, between 1930 and 1940, traveled to Guatemala, El beyond New Orleans. In 1935 oil on canvas, 34” x 44”; courtesy of Louise Chapman Hoffman Salvador, Honduras, and the Josephine sent an oil painting, Panama Canal Zone, under the Magnolia, to Philadelphia to sponsorship of the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane hang in an invitational exhibition, “Paintings by Artists of the Deep University. Josephine and several of her Arts and Crafts Club South,” at the Boyer Galleries on Pennsylvania Boulevard. She colleagues were among the 26 artists invited to participate. Under joined 26 artists from the South The Philadelphia Bulletin referred a reciprocal arrangement, the work of Central American artists was to the Southerners’ art as sectionalism; the exhibition brochure Spring 2009/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 17
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