Josephine Crawford
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Josephine Marien Crawford (December 31, 1878 – March 24, 1952) was an American painter, born into an old, aristocratic family in
New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
. Along with Paul Ninas and
Will Henry Stevens Will Henry Stevens (November 28, 1881 – August 25, 1949) was an American modernist painter and naturalist. Stevens is known for his paintings and tonal pastels depicting the rural Southern landscape, abstractions of nature, and non-objective ...
, she has been credited with introducing modernism to New Orleans.


Life and career

Crawford was the sixth of nine children of Charles Campbell Crawford and Louise Bienvenu Crawford, and grew up speaking English and French; through her mother she was descended from the Bienvenus, who had settled in Louisiana in the eighteenth century. Her maternal grandfather had purchased the family's townhouse, at 612 Royal Street in the
French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the (; ; ), is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans () was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Square" in English), a ...
in 1839. Her father's family was from
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
. In her youth she wrote poetry, much of it about the house and its surroundings; she spent time in
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
and in
Biloxi, Mississippi Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. It lies on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast in southern Mississippi, bordering the city of Gulfport, Mississippi, Gulfport to its west. The adjacent cities ar ...
as well, which further informed her sensibilities. She would return to Biloxi throughout her life. These childhood trips inspired her earliest known drawings, which date to 1896, though she is known to have carried a sketchbook as early as 1888. She traveled widely throughout her life, and is known to have visited much of Europe, Central America, and Mexico at various times. Crawford studied at the Cenas Institute for Young Ladies and McDonogh High School No. 3, and was briefly enrolled, in 1895, at
Newcomb College H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was the coordinate women's college of Tulane University, located in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It was founded by Josephine Louise Newcomb in 1886 in memory of her daughter. Newcomb was the ...
. She evinced no special talent in drawing or painting in early life, and her formal study of art did not begin until later in life, when she enrolled in classes at the school of the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans in the 1920s. Friends of her later years claimed that she had had no formal education at all. Crawford spent the winter of 1927–28 in Paris, studying with
André Lhote André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Early life and education Lhote was bor ...
; in the spring she continued her studies, traveling to
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
and working at the
Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for the ...
. In Europe she entered the
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
scene in Paris and became friends with and was mentored by
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with ...
,
Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement. He gained recognition for his vibrant and decorative style, which became popular in various forms, such as textile designs, and public build ...
, and others. She then returned home to New Orleans and continued to paint and exhibit, with her first solo show coming in 1928. The following year saw her exhibiting in New York, at the Montross Gallery, where she and
Charles Bain Charles Bain (15 March 1913 – 8 April 2007) was a West Indian cricket umpire. He stood in one Test match, West Indies vs. Australia, in 1965. See also * List of Test cricket umpires __NOTOC__ This is a list of umpire (cricket), cricket ...
were singled out for praise from a local critic; she continued showing her art regionally and in New York and Philadelphia for the next decade. She won much critical acclaim and a number of local prizes; she also created work for the
Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal work-relief program that employed professional artists to create sculptures, paintings, crafts and design for public buildings and parks during the Great Depression in the United States. The ...
of the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
. Because her work was far too
avant garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
for New Orleans at that time, after she returned to Louisiana she did most of her painting in private and much of it was not discovered until after her death.Petteys, Chris, "Dictionary of Women Artists: An international dictionary of women artists born before 1900", G.K. Hall & Co., Boston, 1985 Following their discovery, many of these works were given permanent mountings and presented to the public for the first time. For much of her life, Crawford lived with her stepsister Louise Crawford in the house on Royal Street, a building in which Lyle Saxon also had an apartment. In the 1940s, however, she was forced to leave after developing cancer; she then moved in with a sister in the Garden District. Crawford died in New Orleans in 1952; her brother later donated a large collection of personal effects, including sketchbooks, personal papers, and poetry as well as many artworks, to The Historic New Orleans Collection. The Delgado Museum, today the
New Orleans Museum of Art The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest art museum, fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, New Orleans. It is situated within City Park (New Orleans), City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton ...
, held an exhibit of her work, "The World of Josephine Crawford", in 1965. A biography, ''Josephine Crawford: An Artist’s Vision'', was released in 2009.


Work

Crawford's style, rather than being grounded in realism, bordered on the abstract, in contrast to the
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
-derived style which was prominent in New Orleans for much of her early life. Characteristically her palette is muted, lending a quiet quality to her work. Her Cubist-inspired style, developed after her French sojourn, later gave way to a more fluid and expressive technique, which came to full flower in the
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
s and
gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...
s she produced in the 1930s. Her style continued to mature, becoming ever more minimalist by the end of her career. Crawford's most unusual work was a series of eight large portraits of family members, created from photographs and painted on the wallpaper of the parlor at her house, which she used as her studio; these pieces, in which a few inches of the patterned wallpaper are allowed to serve as a pictorial border, are reminiscent of the work of
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
and
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (; ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern art, modern style characterized by a surre ...
. They were among the pieces donated by her brother after her death; they were carefully removed from the walls after the house sustained damage in
Hurricane Betsy Hurricane Betsy was an intense, deadly and destructive tropical cyclone that brought widespread damage to areas of Florida, the Bahamas, and the central United States Gulf Coast in September 1965. The storm's erratic nature, coupled with ...
, and later remounted for exhibition. Critic George Jordan has described Crawford as "one of the most experimental painters of the New South between 1900 and 1950." Her works can be found in: *
Morris Museum of Art The Morris Museum of Art is an art museum in Augusta, Georgia. It was established in 1985 as a non-profit foundation by William S. Morris III, publisher of The Augusta Chronicle, in memory of his parents, as the first museum dedicated to the coll ...
,
Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...

Historic New Orleans Collection


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Josephine Marien 1878 births 1952 deaths Artists from New Orleans American modern painters Painters from Louisiana 20th-century American painters American people of French descent American people of Northern Ireland descent People of the New Deal arts projects 20th-century American women painters