Lot 148
Henry Varnum Poor
American, (1887 - 1970)
Camp at the Rio Grande, 1937
ink wash and watercolor on paper
Signed and dated lower right.
Biography from Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery: Henry Varnum Poor was born in Chapman, Kansas on September 30, 1887. Many sources, and even the artist himself, chronicled the date as 1888; however, census records and the Chapman newspaper confirm 1887. As a child growing up on the Kansas prairie, Poor developed a passionate love for nature and the outdoors - thanks in large part to the influence of his maternal grandfather, Simeon Graham.
Graham, a man of Irish descent, came to Kansas after prospecting for gold in California and serving as a scout during the Civil War. He established his family in Chapman and eventually taught his grandson the ways of the Prairie - including how to make grasshopper and cornmeal pones and baked Prairie Hen. In 1896, the immediate Poor family, consisting of his industrious father Alfred James - who came from Andover, Maine, and was a nephew to the founder of Standard and Poor's - artistic mother Josephine, brother Herbert and sister Eva, moved from Chapman to Kansas City, Missouri. A. J. Poor, a grain dealer and banker, made the move on account of his increasing business interests and membership in the Kansas City Board of Trade.
While in Kansas City, Henry Poor attended one of the earliest Manual Training Schools established in the United States: learning drafting, carpentry, and other industrial arts. He frequently returned to Chapman until moving with his mother and siblings to Palo Alto, California, so that his older brother could enroll in Stanford University. His father remained in Kansas City, attending to the family's business interests.
Henry Poor graduated from Palo Alto High School and entered Stanford University in the fall of 1906, initially majoring in economics before switching to art his junior year. In 1910, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and began a bicycling trip through Europe with former art professor Arthur B. Clark. Prolonging his stay there, he continued his art studies in London and Paris.
In 1911 Poor accepted a one-year temporary position at Stanford. At its conclusion, he married fellow student Lena Wiltz and moved back to Kansas so he could manage his parents' farm approximately four miles north of Bonner Springs. While there a daughter, Josephine, was born. In the fall of 1913, he accepted a job back at Stanford and remained there until 1916, when his position was eliminated by the College president.
Out of work, but still a productive artist, Poor and his young family moved north to San Francisco where he eventually resumed teaching at what would become the San Francisco Institute of Art. He was drafted in 1918 and served as a regimental artist with the 115th Engineers in France. During the War, he was divorced from Lena Wiltz and married Marion Dorn after his return in 1919. The newly wedded couple decided to relocate to New York in hopes of more success with their individual careers.
They settled outside New York in New City, and Poor began constructing a home using local stone and hand-hewn timbers. The house became known as "Crow House" after the crows that congregated to watch him work. When the house was complete, he extended his artistic activities beyond painting and began working in ceramics. In the ensuing years, he made functional pottery, sculpture, architectural elements, fountains and tile murals in clay.
While busy developing his ceramic work, he also began constructing houses for friends and associates in the region - including playwright Maxwell Anderson, and actors Burgess Meredith and John Houseman.
Also in the 1920s, Poor remarried for the final time. He was divorced from Marion Dorn in 1923 and two years later married Bessie Freedman Breuer, an established writer and editor. Breuer had a daughter, Anne, whom Poor adopted, and in 1926 they had a son, Peter.
After working extensively in ceramics throughout the 1920s he resumed painting in 1929. By the mid-1930s, his paintings drew as much attention as his ceramics. New York critics such as Emporia native Murdock Pemberton and Edward Alden Jewell championed Poor's paintings, placing his work at the forefront of American artists. Reviewing an exhibition in 1937, Jewell wrote in The New York Times: "For my part, I will pit Henry Varnum Poor against any living artist anywhere, yes, and against a lot of artists who have laid aside their brushes, quite confident that he can hold his own."
Also, in the early 1930s, he began experimenting with traditional fresco painting. This eventually led to mural commissions for several public buildings.
In 1938 Poor's increasing reputation facilitated an invitation to illustrate Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome, published by the Limited Editions Club. He later illustrated The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
During the Great Depression Poor became deeply involved in the organization and operation of the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts. He participated as an artist and juror. After America entered World War II, he encouraged artistic activity in the war effort. He authored and illustrated a book, An Artist Sees Alaska, recounting his travels along the Alaska coast as a visual art war correspondent. He later wrote and illustrated a book on ceramics titled A Book of Pottery: From Mud Into Immortality.
Poor was generally reluctant to serve as a teacher following his time at Stanford and in San Francisco, but he did accept several positions in later years. His most dedicated effort as an instructor came in 1946 when he co-founded the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.
The last years of his life were spent primarily working in ceramics and pastels. He died from a heart attack on December 8, 1970.
Submitted by Ron Michael, Curator, Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery
- Dimensions: 12 1/4"H x 18 1/2"W(sight), 20"H x 24"W(mat)
- Medium: ink wash and watercolor on paper
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