PROFILE: Grant T. Reynard

Grant T. Reynard; Artist of many talents and achievements also taught others to create from true inner desire

Some artists gain a reputation for specializing in one area of their field, not mingling with other artists, and taking more than they have shared, while others have given more of their talent and themselves than is often known by the public.

An example of the latter was Nebraska native Grant T. Reynard, who became not only one of the prominent artists of the 20th century but also had a significant career as a teacher, reported a feature on Reynard published in the November 1961 American Artist. And it is thought that he became the first artist to serve as president of a museum.

Furthermore, Harlan E. Knautz, author of the book-length biography Grant Reynard, N. A.: An American Painter (Baldwin-Wallace, 1974), asserted that "his various talents as a painter, illustrator, etcher, lithographer and musician make his cultural contributions to American life varied and significant, because he has revealed through these various mediums his heightened sensitivity to nature, music, and American life, enriching the quality of the lives of many of those who have heard his lectures or who have appreciated his work."

During his lengthy career, he produced a few thousand creations ranging from figure studies to landscape, displayed his work in more than 90 exhibitions, had more than 200 illustrations published in books and magazines, and lectured at more than 90 colleges and other institutions. Among several forms of recognition was his election to the National Academy of Design in 1940 as an associate and in 1965 as national academician.

Born in 1887 at Grand Island in central Nebraska, one of two children of Stephen and Jennie Bacon Reynard, he learned to play the piano, sang with his family in the First Presbyterian Church choir, participated in several church events, and worked at his father's music store. Grant also began to make sketches of local people as well as Gibson girls from magazines while working in the Elks Club bowling alleys, and made drawings on school papers that impressed his teachers.

After his father became manager of the opera house, he attended various performances, and at the age of 14 made sketches of visiting celebrities such as entertainer William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, orator William Jennings Bryan, and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. He also experienced duck hunting with his father on the nearby Platte River, participated in Christmas tree parties, and watched people who attended a camp meeting in a large tent.

Grant also took a correspondence course consisting of 12 lessons from an artist employed with the Chicago Tribune. Shortly after graduation from Grand Island Senior High in 1905, he attended the Chicago Art Institute Academy of Fine Arts in the evenings, hoping to become a cartoonist, and worked in the daytime as a clerk-typist at Marshall Field Department Store.

Failing as a cartoonist, he returned to Grand Island for two years to work at his father's music store. He also spent time working on his brother's celery ranch in California.

Then he returned to Chicago to attend the Academy of Fine Arts, where he completed his formal education in 1911, and began work as an illustrator for Redbook, a monthly publication, because his various other drawing jobs did not succeed. Soon he was invited to serve as the magazine's art editor, and gained experience in working with authors for three years.

Though continuing to illustrate for Redbook each month for ten years, he left Chicago in 1914 to live at Leonia, New Jersey to gain further training that would help him illustrate for the larger magazine publishers in New York and Philadelphia. He studied under the respected teacher Harvey Dunn, became acquainted with a few experienced painters, and learned how to make charcoal illustrations. At the same time, he was permitted to sketch local villagers and make drawings from life and nature.

After his marriage to Gwendolyn Crawford in 1917, his interest in becoming an independent painter and etcher emerged. An important event in Grant's career was his 1923 trip to Europe, where he made sketches in Paris and observed various scenes that captured his imagination, and in London, where he continued his work and also visited museums. During almost a year in Europe, he was inspired by the work of such famed artists as Rembrandt and Cezanne .

Upon his return to Leonia, he built a studio behind his home, using it for the remainder of his life. And he continued charcoal illustrations for another five years with many leading magazines, such as The Saturday Evening-Post, Ladies Home Journal, Harpers Bazaar, and Colliers. Among about 150 short stories requiring illustrations were those authored by the renowned F. Scott Fitzgerald and John P. Marquand. According to biographer Knautz, subjects chosen for illustration "ranged from pianists with attentive listeners to formal dinner parties, dinner conversations, hospital operations, love affairs, and family scenes."

About 1928, he and his family, which included two daughters, began to attend the First Baptist Church at nearby Hackensack, and his Christian art revealed skies with "a silver light lining the edges of the moving clouds." And on a sketching trip to New England, he stopped at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, which was known for providing a retreat with ideal working conditions for composers, poets, novelists, painters and sculptors.

During his first visit, two significant events occurred. Grant was invited to return to MacDowell, and for the following eight summers he performed not only his own work but also mingled with such notables as poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, composer Aaron Copland, author Thornton Wilder, and others.

And he had a chance meeting with Nebraska author Willa Cather, recipient of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for her novel My Antonia, who inspired him by reviewing her own career and her early experiences in Nebraska that helped her find herself as a writer. Of that brief encounter, Reynard had written letters in 1948 to Mildred Bennett of Red Cloud, Nebraska, who became a major founder of the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial in the community.

Biographer Knautz examined the letters, and reported that Cather had told Grant, in part, "the great thing was desire in art. That a desire to express ourselves be a clear compelling thing that must out...No thought of editors, opinions, galleries--just a great urge to write or compose, or paint coming freely through a great compelling desire."

The next summer he began to write, paint, and illustrate about subjects related to his own background and interests, including landscapes, musical people, the prairie, New York City characters, and more. "Willa Cather had uncovered the native honesty that Reynard had partially smothered. This was the turning point of his career," stated Knautz, an observation that reflected the content of Grant's memoirs titled "Willa Cather's Advice to a Young Artist" that was posthumously published in the Summer 1972 issue of The Prairie Schooner.

And he decided--at the age of 43--to end his successful career as a commercial illustrator for magazines and instead become an independent painter, art teacher, and lecturer in the 1930s and beyond.

As an independent painter, his work appeared in many exhibitions, including several one-man exhibitions in New York City, which received favorable reviews in its newspapers. Among the many kinds of art work he pursued were watercolors, which numbered more than 500 in his career, reported biographer Knautz, and subjects ranged from nature to sites to structures and sometimes people nationwide. Examples were Platte River Hunters, Nebraska in 1930, New Hampshire Pasture in 1933, Mexican Quarters, California in 1936, Wyoming High Country in 1943, West Kentucky Mine in 1947, The Chemistry Lab in 1953, Brooklyn Bridge in 1957, Women on Beach in 1963, and From Library of Congress in 1966.

Among over 150 oil paintings that covered a wide variety of interests were his Daughters in Party Costumes in 1934, Town of Barnard, Vermont in 1938, Nebraska Pheasant in 1943, The Blue-Eyed Cowhand in 1950, Milkman, Paterson, New Jersey in 1954, Julie's Flowers in 1956, and Atlantic Coastal Scene in 1959.

As for his drawings, Reynard believed in constant practice, according to the November 1961 American Artist feature, which reported "he makes hundreds of them every year in a variety of media that include pencil, pen and ink, wash, crayon, carbon, pastel, and in large and small scale." Though he did not intend them for exhibitions, "many have been sold to patrons who own his paintings and many others represent him in national exhibitions." His subjects were comprised of famous musicians and artists, including his self portraits in 1920 and 1930, ordinary persons in all walks of life, rural settings, and street scenes in American and European cities.

The majority of his prints (drypoint, etching, and lithograph) were made in the 1930s, and also reflected his broad interests, such as Berry Pickers, The Pianist, and Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1930, Alley Cats in 1931, A Modern Opera in 1933, The Teeter Totter, New Jersey in 1936, Dover Church Spire in 1947, Head of Robert Frost in 1966, and The Old Farm, Nebraska in 1967. About 100 of Reynard's prints were listed by biographer Knautz.

His art work reflected a native American vision, and according to a 1969 interview of his widow Gwen by biographer Knautz, he had painted "the good side of life because there was too much of the bad side" during the conditions of the 1930s, the Depression, and war. And appropriately, he designed materials for the "Artists for Victory" project that supported the nation's efforts against fascist enemies during World War II.

Reynard did not, however, completely abandon his talent for illustrations while being an independent painter, for he created 33 illustrations for Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (World Publishing, 1948). And he continued his own interest in writing, with over a dozen articles published in such periodicals as Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's Magazine and American Artist and in a few books.

Throughout his life, he often recorded his thoughts in poetic narrative, some of which were published in his book of poetry Rattling Home for Christmas (American Artists Group, 1941), which contained a description of his travel from California to Grand Island before resuming his education at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

Many of his other writings, or poetic narratives, were posthumously published (with some revision by Harry Hoffman) in the 116-page book titled The Colors of My Life: Memoirs of A Nebraska Artist (Kearney State College, 1986), which included recollections of his years in Grand Island, Chicago, and Leonia, and reinforced what his art expressed--a love for ordinary people, the beauty of nature, and the freedom of the prairie.

Another aspect of his career that began shortly after he became an independent painter was that of an art teacher and lecturer. At first, he taught at the Grand Central School of Art from 1930 to 1932, then at the Millbrook School in New York once a week from 1936 to 1944. He also taught during the summers of 1938 and 1939 at West Texas State College at Canyon, Texas and in the summers of 1941 and 1942 served as artist-in-residence at the University of Wyoming.

In his philosophy of art, Reynard believed that students need to become disciplined in the use of materials, formulas, and methods so that their command of them became instinctive, reported biographer Knautz, but he also considered each student as an artist from the beginning (instead of always trying to be an artist), and that the student should proceed with enthusiasm at his own speed.

In an article published in The Texas Outlook in 1940, he stated, in part, "The young artist should believe in, and be, himself, for there is room for every type of artist, every color sense, and every style. Find life exciting and paint the familiar--homes, towns, cities, dads, and mothers." In short, follow your true inner desire and be aware that "beauty to be painted could be found in your own backyard."

In the 1930s, he held a few exhibitions elsewhere and made an effort to visit such Nebraska communities as Columbus, Grand Island, Hastings, Lincoln, North Platte, and Omaha. His interest in the majority of Americans, especially those in the rural areas, needing and wanting art, grew progressively, according to Knautz. And after a 1946 workshop on rural education held at Columbia University, he decided--at 59 years of age--to increase the visitor-lecturer-teacher phase of his life nationwide for the remaining 22 years of his life.

With arrangements made as part of an arts program of the Association of American Colleges, he lectured in the fall, winter and spring of every year until 1968, often painting during his visits to more than 90 colleges in 25 states from New York to Wyoming and Minnesota to Texas, with many return visits to such institutions as Baldwin-Wallace College at Berea, Ohio. Reynard also made presentations at more than 30 women's clubs and many museums, covering such topics as the enjoyment of art and great American painters. He also tried to stimulate his audiences by incorporating the human factors of reason, emotion, will, and spirit. And he was known to offer humorous comments.

While on his summer visit at South Dakota State College at Brookings in 1954, where he was an artist-in-residence, he also traveled over 6,500 miles in his car, transporting paintings not only to Brookings but also to Pittsburgh, Grand Island, Denver, and Trinidad, Colorado. In the summer of 1962, he traveled almost 6,000 miles to seven southern states.

His Nebraska visits included Doane College, Hastings College, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In September 1967, he gained much satisfaction from lecturing and holding an exhibition at the opening of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer at his former hometown of Grand Island. Aside from his busy career as a traveling lecturer-painter, he also became president of the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey in September 1955, serving in that capacity for the next decade. He was the first known artist to be a museum president, according to biographer Knautz.

He took pride in the newly remodeled building, participated in meetings and committee work, and helped acquire works by reputable American painters. And he was on occasion an art critic, with much respect for Christian art.

Various forms of recognition were accorded during Reynard's career, aside from the prestigious honors in 1940 and 1965 from the National Academy of Design. His Degas Portrait was selected as one of 50 prints of the year in 1932 for an exhibition sponsored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. The Beach was selected by the American Society of Etchers for its One Hundred Selected Prints of 1936.

His Wind and Rain, shown at the World's Fair in 1939, was published in the 1938 edition of Fine Prints of the Year, and Down The Hill received the Pennell Prize at the Library of Congress National Exhibition of Prints in 1944. And he received an honorary doctorate from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1955.

As is customary, the creations of renowned artists are preserved in various locations. Nearly 20 major institutions house Grant's art work, including Baldwin-Wallace College, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Montclair Art Museum, and the New York Public Library.

In Nebraska, some of his works are preserved at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial at Red Cloud. More than 60 of his original pieces of art as well as much archival information are at Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island.

Likely the largest collection in the nation is located at the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) at Kearney. Because of a large donation by Jane Wilcox, more than 3,000 pieces of Reynard's work, including oils, watercolors, pastels, charcoal, graphite, and etchings, were obtained for housing at MONA in 1981, along with his entire studio and many archival papers.

A feature article in the September 19, 1982 Omaha Sunday World Herald Magazine of the Midlands reported his widow Gwen Reynard willingly contributed belongings to MONA, and quoted her as saying, "Now, Grant is going back to Nebraska."

Of the biographical sources previously cited, the most comprehensive is Harlan E. Knautz' book Grant Reynard, N. A. : An American Painter (Baldwin-wallace, 1974). An obituary was published in the August 14, 1968 New York Times, and there is an entry in Who Was Who in America, Vol 5 (1973).

Born October 20, 1887 at Grand Island, Nebraska, one of two children of Stephen and Jennie Bacon Reynard, Grant died August 13, 1968 at the age of 80 from complications after cancer surgery earlier that year. He was survived by his wife and two children. Interment was at George Washington Memorial Park at Paramus, New Jersey.

For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.gagecountymuseum.org or www.nebpress.com.

NSEA

Survey

PROFILE: Grant T. Reynard

Grant T. Reynard; Artist of many talents and achievements also taught others to create from true inner desire