Grace Spaulding John Explained

Grace Spaulding John
Birth Date:10 February 1890
Birth Place:Battle Creek, Michigan, United States
Nationality:American
Education:St. Louis School of Fine Arts
National Academy of Design
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Art Students League
Known For:Painting
Style:Portraiture

Grace Spaulding John (1890 – 1972) was an American painter, author and lecturer born in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her early years were spent in Vermont, and around the age of thirteen she moved with her family to Texas.

She studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, at the National Academy of Design, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,[1] at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the Art Students League, variously with Charles Webster Hawthorne, Daniel Garber, Fred Weber and with Emil Bisttram in Taos.[2]

“A fine portrait painter, she executed over a hundred and twenty-five portraits, all done from life, among them Thomas Mann, Edgar Lee Masters, and Oveta Culp Hobby dressed in her uniform as first commander of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps which is now in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. During her career, she had twenty-seven one-man shows.”[3]

John is the author of the books “Memo: Verses with Drawings by the Author”, “The Living Line: Drawings and Verses.”[4] (1962), “The Knotless Thread” (1970), “One-Plus One_Plus One (1972) and is the illustrator of “Azalea Commemorating Its Twentieth Annual Azalea Trail Houston” (1955).

Grace Spaulding John's papers can be found at the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University.[3]

Notes and References

  1. Gilbert, Dorothy B., ed., Who’s Who in American Art, The American Federation of Arts, R.R. Bowker Company, NY 1963
  2. Opitz, Glenn B, Editor, Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie NY, 1986
  3. Web site: Guide to the Grace Spaulding John papers, 1890-1977 MS 383. 7 March 2016.
  4. Book: The Living Line. LibraryThing.com. 7 March 2016.