Kathleen Blackshear (1897–1988) was an American

Modernist 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 ...

artist known for her sensitive depictions of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

subjects.

Early Life and Education

Kathleen Blackshear was born June 6, 1897, near the Texas Cotton Belt in a city called Navasota, Texas. She was the only child of Edward Duncan Blackshear and May (Terrell) Blackshear. She spent much of her youth on cotton plantations owned by members of both her mother's and father's families near the town of Navasota. Her childhood friendships with the children of African-American field workers strongly influenced her later career. Blackshear graduated from Navasota High School in 1914 and showed an aptitude for art at an early age. After graduating high school, she attended

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...

, graduating with a bachelor's degree in modern languages in 1917, after which she went to New York to study at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

. Her teachers at the ASL included

Solon Borglum Solon Hannibal de la Mothe Borglum (December 22, 1868 – January 31, 1922) was an American sculptor. He is most noted for his depiction of frontier life, and especially his experience with cowboys and native Americans. He was awarded the Croix ...

George Bridgman George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some ...

, and

Frank Vincent DuMond Frank Vincent DuMond (August 20, 1865 – February 6, 1951) was one of the most influential teacher-painters in 20th-century America. He was an illustrator and American Impressionist painter of portraits and landscapes, and a prominent teach ...

. She left New York in 1918 and spent the next six years traveling around Texas, California, and Europe and taking odd jobs, including hand-coloring films and designing film posters in Los Angeles. In 1924, Blackshear took up her art studies again, this time at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

(SAIC), where she studied with John Norton, Charles Fabens Kelley, William Owen, and art historian Helen Gardner who throughout her time at SAIC became a lifelong friend. She studied painting and graphic arts and later received her master's degree from SAIC in 1940.

Teaching and illustration work

In 1926, Blackshear began teaching art history and studio courses at SAIC to help support herself and continued to do so until retiring in 1961. She was known for mentoring African-American artists, including

Margaret Burroughs Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (November 1, 1915 – November 21, 2010), also known as Margaret Taylor Goss, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs or Margaret T G Burroughs, was an American visual artist, writer, poet, educator, and arts organizer. She co-fo ...

, and for introducing her students to African and Asian art through field trips to local collections. While at SAIC, Blackshear supplied the analytical drawings for two of Helen Gardner's books, '' Art Through the Ages'' (1926)—one of the earliest American art history textbooks to incorporate non-Western art—and ''Understanding the Arts'' (1932). She also supplied illustrations for Katharine Kuh's ''Art Has Many Faces'' (1951). Through their shared interest in non-Western art, Blackshear and Gardner have been credited with being key influences on the distinctive style of postwar Chicago artists.

Art career

Influenced by various strains of

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 ...

including

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 a ...

and Cubism, Blackshear developed a range of styles with bold, simplified forms and rhythmic or patterned elements often featuring strong diagonals and tilted planes. Her paintings are reminiscent of Regionalists such as Thomas Hart Benton and modernists like Fernand Léger, while her whimsical abstract drawings evoke

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

. During the height of her career, between 1924 and 1940, African Americans were the central subjects of her work, and she became known for depicting them with warmth and clarity but without sentimentality. In 1939, critic C. J. Bulliet called her "Chicago’s most sympathetic, most understanding painter of the American Negro." Blackshear also made two dioramas for the 1933

Century of Progress A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...

Exposition in Chicago. During her lifetime, Blackshear exhibited her work at regional museums such as the

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts 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 A ...

, the

Houston Museum of Fine Arts 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 ...

, and the Delgado Museum of Art (New Orleans, LA). She had her first solo museum show in 1941 at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, TX.

Personal life

Although she lived in Chicago, Blackshear kept a studio in Houston and often spent the summer in Navasota. Blackshear's life companion was the artist Ethel Spears, whom she probably met at SAIC and who died in 1974. Blackshear died October 14, 1988, in Navasota.

Legacy

Blackshear's work is in the collections of the Modern Art Museum (Fort Worth, TX), the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other institutions. Blackshear was the subject of a 1990 retrospective at SAIC entitled "A Tribute to Kathleen Blackshear." Her papers and those of Ethel Spears are held by the Smithsonian Institution's

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Kathleen Blackshear and Ethel Spears Papers, 1920–1990
(finding aid) {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackshear, Kathleen 1897 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American women artists American women painters Painters from Texas Baylor University alumni School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni 20th-century American painters People from Navasota, Texas 20th-century American women painters