A SHEEP PICTURE BY AN ECCENTRIC ARTIST

In February 2009 I did a post about some of the early 20th century sheep lithograph prints we have collected (click here).  In that post I promised I would show you some of my step-great-grandmother's art.  Better late than never -- it's only been five years.

A back story of the artist -- My great-grandfather, after being widowed with two young boys, came to Colorado from Maine in the 1880s to start a new life.  After his boys were raised, he sent for 'Auntie Evelyn' to come west to be his new wife in 1897.  She was considered to be a spinster at the age of 29 when she was dispatched to Colorado!  We have the train ticket that he sent her for her journey.  To us, she was always called 'Auntie Evelyn' -- I guess because she never really mothered anyone.  

AUNTIE EVELYN IN 1935

They were married for 41 years until his death in 1938; she lived until 1950 in the West, far from her family and in a place that must have felt so foreign to her.  She was an untrained artist, but with considerable talent.  Her drawings and paintings are done on whatever materials available - cardboard, etc.  She never had much money for her art supplies, and probably was considered just an amateur 'Sunday' painter.

In the 1960s someone who knew a little about art told me that all she did was copy other works - could be true as they are very similar to the lithograph prints of the early 1900s.  I'm sure this was her way of learning more about art -- a common practice for the unschooled.  This particular drawing is done in charcoal/chalk and it needs to be restored. Several years ago when I tried to take it apart to better photograph it; a lot of the charcoal remained on the glass.  I stopped right there and reassembled it!

For several generations, my family was in the sheep ranching business; and this picture hung over the mantle in my grand-parent's home for years.  My grandmother gave it to me in 1961.  Later on, I inherited two more drawings and three of Auntie Evelyn's oil paintings plus some of her furniture.  No one but me seemed to want them.
The family just considered her an "eccentric artist".  She ended her own life by hanging herself in the barn under very dramatic circumstances -- such a contradiction to her serene and comforting art work.

I promise I'll show you some more of her artwork before another five years fly by.

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