Everett Franklin Spruce (December 25, 1908 – October 18, 2002) was a painter, museum professional, and arts educator based in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. He was widely recognized as one of the earliest regional visual artists to have embraced
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
in his interpretations of the Southwestern aesthetic. As a member of the Dallas Nine, he contributed to developing a stylistic lexicon that captured realistic and unidealized perspectives of the region, shifting away from the “Old South” view of Texas. Regional nature dominated his oeuvre, and a wide array of artistic movements, music, and literature influenced his renderings of it.
Early life
Spruce was born to William Everett and Fannie May Spruce, as the oldest of six, in Holland, Arkansas, a small town near Conway. When he was three, his family moved to
Adams Mountain
Adams Mountain (variant name: Adams Knob) is a mountain near the unincorporated community of Collettsville, North Carolina. It is situated wholly within Pisgah National Forest. It reaches and is nearby Brown Mountain Ridge, which is known for it ...
, where his father grew apples and peaches. Spending time atop the mountain in rural Arkansas sparked his curiosity for the natural world and he claimed that sketching landscapes was his way of “understanding things”.
As a teenager, Spruce moved to an area north of
Mulberry
''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...
with his family, where they cultivated corn and cotton. Outside of schooling and intense labor on the farm, he continued to sharpen his skills in sketching; he soon became known for drawing caricatures of his classmates and sold his work for a nickel apiece.
His intimate connection and exposure to nature throughout his upbringing shaped his art, which often focused on landscape themes. His family's
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
background, which supports stewardship over the earth, furthered Spruce's philosophical approach to interpreting the natural world.
Education
When Spruce was in high school, he was presented with the opportunity to meet artists and co-founders of the Dallas Art Institute (DAI), Kathryne Hail Travis and Olin Travis. Kathryne's mother, Maude Hail, a friend of Spruce's aunt, arranged a meeting while they were visiting Arkansas on a sketching trip. Impressed with Spruce's drawings, the Travises offered him admission to their institute to study and work for room and board. Upon graduating from Mulberry High School in 1926, Spruce moved to Dallas to attend DAI, despite his father's disapproval of him pursuing art professionally.
Under Olin's tutelage, Spruce was introduced to the “old masters” and modernist movements like
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
and
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
, which influenced his use of color, form, and perspectives. He was drawn to works by Cézanne,
Braque
Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...
,
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, and
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
. Thomas Stell joined the DAI faculty in 1928, and exposed Spruce to a modernist take on learning and adopting styles across different eras, including the
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...
; parallels can be seen between some of Spruce's compositions and works by Mantegna and Bellini. Spruce kept up to date with the everchanging trends in modernism, but remained committed primarily to applying them within the Southwestern aesthetic. He graduated from DAI in 1929.
Career
In 1931, Spruce was offered a position as a gallery assistant under the director, John S. Ankeney, at the Dallas Public Art Gallery, later renamed the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and now known as the
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
. Fortunate to have secured a stable role during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, he continued to work at the museum for the following nine years. In 1936, he was promoted to assistant director and began teaching at the museum.
His work was included in the “Exhibition of Young Dallas Painters” at the Dallas Public Art Gallery in 1932, after which the participating artists were referred to as the Dallas Nine. He remained close with this group and other contemporaries through the then newly formed Dallas Artists League, a community of artists and patrons dedicated to promoting local art. His piece ''Suburban Landscape'', and ''Sumac'', by his wife, Alice Kramer, were shown at the
Texas Centennial Exposition
The Texas Centennial Exposition was a world's fair presented from June 6 to November 29, 1936, at Fair Park, Dallas, Texas. A celebration of the 100th anniversary of Texas's independence from Mexico in 1836, it also celebrated Texas and Western Am ...
in 1936 among works by other local artists. He also joined Jerry Bywaters in forming the Lone Star Printmakers group in 1938 to circulate their works on a national scale.
Spruce left the museum in 1940 to join the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
as a member of its art faculty, and remained there until his retirement in 1974. Between 1949 and 1951, he served as Chairman of the Department of Art. He earned his professorship in 1954, and graduate professorship in 1960. He spent the last thirteen years of his tenure as Director of Graduate Studio Art.
Throughout his career as a museum professional and educator, Spruce continued to paint and participate in exhibitions across the country. His work was selected into exhibitions at the
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco ...
,
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
,
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
,
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
,
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC) is an arts center located just north of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. Located on the same city block are the American Numismatic Association and part of the campus of Colorado ...
,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
Witte Museum
The Witte Museum was established in 1926 and is located in Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas. It is dedicated to telling the stories of Texas, from prehistory to the present. The permanent collection features historic artifacts and photograp ...
,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Many of these museums actively acquired his paintings between the 1930s and 1950s. Among his many accolades were the Dealey Purchase Prize, first prize in the Midwestern Artist's Exhibition at the
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approxi ...
, top honors in the Kiest Purchase Prize, and the William W. Crocker Prize at the
San Francisco Art Association The San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established the first art school west of Chicago. The SFAA – which, by 1961, completed a long sequence ...
. Though he received national acclaim early in his career, as movements like Pop Art and
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
emerged, his work slowly faded into oblivion.
Work
Spruce often worked in oils, creating textural modulations using thickness and intensity of knife and brush strokes. He used acrylics in manners similar to his oils, and in some cases, used crayon over acrylics to enhance the richness of his colors. He used
encaustic painting
Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, is a form of painting that involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. The molten mix is applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other mat ...
as well to produce vibrant colors and mosaic-like textures. Many of his ink and charcoal drawings, made both for discipline and in leisure, have also received recognition in exhibitions.
Through his deep response to nature, Spruce steered away from the then traditional renderings of Southwestern landscapes by artists like
Frank Reaugh
Charles Franklin Reaugh (December 29, 1860 – May 6, 1945), known as Frank Reaugh, was an American artist, photographer, inventor, patron of the arts, and teacher, who was called the "Dean of Texas Painters". Born and raised in Illinois, he move ...
, to capture spirituality and discovery. Unlike many artists during the Great Depression, he did not focus his work on recounting previous American ideals or highlighting social issues of the time; instead, he interpreted how regional nature paralleled the zeitgeist and universal values through themes of abundance, isolation, renewal, and more. His work presented near-primitive stylized forms; he became known for his angular and distinct renderings of geographical features and flora, which served in alluding to unromanticized and mystic characteristics of the Southwest. One of his most celebrated works, ''The Hawk'' (1939), currently housed at MoMA, has been construed to reference
Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and hi ...
’s description of the bird observing spring's arrival, symbolic of Spruce's hope for recovery and renewal after the
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
.
Spruce experimented with different styles, and his paintings often reflected changes in artistic trends with each decade throughout his career, without seeming to compromise his unique approach to his work. Over his seven-decade career, he produced around 800 artworks rooted in his fascination for the natural world.
He rarely engaged in portraiture, but two of his most notable figurative pieces are ''Twins'' (1939), a rendering of his young twin daughters, and ''Alice'' (1979), a tribute to his wife after her death.
Collections
Spruce's work can be found in the permanent collections of the
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...
, Dallas Museum of Art,
Old Jail Art Center
The Old Jail Art Center (OJAC) is an art museum, art and local history museum, regional history museum in Albany, Texas. It is housed in a former jail that was completed in 1878. After being replaced by a new jail in 1929, the old jail building w ...
,
Delaware Art Museum
The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artis ...
, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...
,
Wichita Art Museum
The Wichita Art Museum is an art museum located in Wichita, Kansas, United States.
The museum was established in 1915, when Louise Caldwell Murdock’s Will which created a trust to start the Roland P. Murdock Collection of art in memory of her ...
, Whitney Museum of American Art,
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin, ...
, and MoMA.
Personal life
In 1934, Spruce married Alice Virginia Kramer, his former classmate at the Dallas Art Institute. Together, they had four children – twin daughters, Georgia and Alice (born 1937), followed by two sons, William (born 1939) and Henry (born 1944).