Kansas Impressions

Kansas Impressions
October 3 – November 14, 2008
Curator: Sherry Best

Kansas Impressions

This exhibit honors Beth Skoog, and celebrates some of the first artists in Topeka who worked in European traditions. As we were planning the exhibit, Beth’s husband, Ralph Skoog, asked “Wouldn’t it be great for people to know that we’ve had really good artists in Topeka for a hundred years, that the artists who are working now aren’t a new thing?”

The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery is proud to host this exhibit, drawn from the collections of the library, the Mulvane Art Museum, and of Ralph and Beth Skoog.

Who was Beth Skoog?

Beth Skoog, a long time Topekan, was the mother of five sons, and the grandmother of seven. Beth and Ralph began collecting art for their Potwin home with an eye to works that fit its Victorian style. They enjoyed the work of Topeka artists L. A. Gillette and Helen Hodge, and knew Helen through their church. Ralph remembers Beth as being “a friend to all the women in the neighborhood, and if she wasn’t their friend, she was their big sister.” Susan Marchant, Manager of Special Collections at the library, grew up next door to the Skoogs. She recalls that “Beth was at home in the outdoors. The Skoog yard was always full of kids, with Beth in shorts and bare feet monitoring the chaos. Tall, down-to-earth, she was bright, smart and funny. And you better believe, when she spoke, her five boys listened! She was beautiful inside and out. She was an amazing lady.” Beth passed away June 20, 2004.

A History of Art in Topeka

In 1871, the Ladies Library Association drafted the charter for the Topeka Library Association. Subscribers could check out from a selection of forty books. The books were housed initially the Keith and Myers Dry Goods Store. The collection moved among generous store owners willing to make room for it. However, the number of books doubled in its first year, and eventually grew too large to move. In 1872, Edward Wilder, Secretary Treasurer of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, was the first man elected to the Ladies Library Board. By the fall of 1880, he persuaded the trustees of the AT&SF Railroad to donate $12,500 toward the construction of a library building. He then convinced the Union Pacific Railroad to donate a comparable sum. With these donations and private monies, the construction of the Topeka Library began on the statehouse grounds at 8th and Jackson Streets. Wilder (a former Bostonian) brought Henry Hobson Richardson, a famed and accomplished architect, from Boston to design the brownstone building. The Topeka Library offered books for checkout to the general public. When that building was demolished in 1966, most of the fixtures were sold at auction. Among them were six stained glass windows, discovered by Walt and Connie Menninger. Five were recovered in time for the addition and renovation of the current library in 2002; and, in the past year, these were joined by a gift of the sixth and final window, a gift from Walt and Connie Menninger.

In 1890, Library Board president Edward Wilder hired a young artist, George E. Hopkins, to give art lessons on the second floor of the Topeka Public Library. He taught classes for four years, and one of his students, George M. Stone, took over the Topeka Art School with cartoonist Albert T. Reid. Eventually, the courses they taught at the Reid-Stone Art School in drawing and painting formed the first formal art curriculum at Washburn University.

Edward Wilder’s fascination with art began when he was in Boston. The Boston Public Library had an art collection, and Wilder thought that the Topeka Public Library should as well. In 1894, Edward Wilder brought together family and friends of retiring Colonel Asa S. Johnson to purchase Johnson’s art collection for display in the library. Johnson traveled extensively through Europe and had amassed a sizable and impressive collection of reproductions of old masters and original artworks. These decorated the library walls and served as inspiration to the Topeka Art School students. The library still has some of the work produced by those students; some are displayed in the Topeka Room/Genealogy area on the second floor of the library. Included in the Johnson collection’s original works were paintings by Walter Launt Palmer, Paul Cornoyer, and Henry Mosler. All of these artists had studied in Europe. When George Stone wanted to go to Paris to study art, Johnson wrote him a letter of introduction to Mosler. At one time, Mosler’s painting “Great Expectations” hung opposite Stone’s “When the Fodder’s in the Shock” in the reading room at the old library.

Washburn University offered its very first art course in 1858, taught by Minnie V. Otis.
In 1893-94, Frances D. Whittemore started teaching art at Washburn University, and was later named the first head of its Art Department. By 1923, she persuaded Joab Mulvane to donate $50,000 toward the construction of the Mulvane Art Museum and develop its art collection. V. Helen Anderson (painter), Mary Huntoon (painter and printmaker), James R. Hunt (painter, art historian, and Mulvane Art Museum director), Jack Wright (ceramist) and many other artists would join the faculty at Washburn University.
These artists would form the roots of the development of the visual arts in Topeka. Among George Stone’s students were Helen Hodge, Mary Huntoon, Kenneth Adams and David Overmyer. Among Frances Whittemore’s students were Merrell Gage, Mary Huntoon, Frank Peers and Margaret Whittemore. In 1916, these artists formed the Topeka Art Guild. The purpose of the Topeka Art Guild was to promote the arts in Topeka. They regularly organized exhibits in the newly opened Topeka High School Gallery. Newspaper accounts of the time enthusiastically covered the exhibits by members, and the traveling exhibits by significant artists the group brought to Topeka. The Topeka Art Guild is still active, has a public gallery at Fairlawn Mall and offers art classes. Charles Marshall, State Architect organized the Kansas State Federation of Art. Its purpose was to bring art to rural Kansas, and membership dues supported bringing art to communities who couldn’t afford it.

Mary Huntoon, former area manager of the Works Project Administration, joined the staff of the Winter Veterans Administration Hospital and the Menninger Foundation. With Ruth Faison Shaw, Robert Ault and Don Jones, Huntoon developed the concept of art therapy for the patients at the clinics. This revolutionary approach was very successful: eighty percent of her patients were released after one year.

These artists worked closely together to promote the arts in Topeka. Their efforts paid off in terms of arts education, arts involvement, and a thriving arts community that continues today. Many Topeka artists worked in other fields as well, earning their living from some career other than art. This community has always valued art, and has always made an effort to support the arts through collecting, exhibiting, and sharing. While the individual arts entities do compete in one sense for a finite amount of resources, our history of mutual support, extensive involvement in multiple organizations and willingness to share information and resources freely has made Topeka a vital force in the arts today. When the Library expanded in 1999 - 2000, another famed architect was selected to design the expansion. Michael Graves is one of the most well-known Post-Modern architects in America.

The tradition continues.

—Sherry Best
Exhibit Curator and Gallery Director

106 photos | 583 views

items are from between 02 Oct 2008 & 07 Oct 2008.