Everett Spruce

{{Short description|American painter}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = | education = Dallas Art Institute | death_place = Austin, Texas | death_date = October 18, 2002 | baptised =  | birth_place = Holland, Arkansas | birth_date = December 25, 1908 | alma_mater = | birth_name =  | native_name = | caption = | alt = | image_size = | image =  | native_name_lang = | mother = | name =  | known_for = Visual arts | style = | website =  | memorials = | elected = | notable_works = | relatives = | father = | parents = | children = | partner = | spouse = Alice Virginia Kramer | movement = Regionalism | module = }}

'''Everett Franklin Spruce''' (December 25, 1908 – October 18, 2002) was a painter, museum professional, and arts educator based in Texas. He was widely recognized as one of the earliest regional visual artists to have embraced modernism in his interpretations of the Southwestern aesthetic.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Texas Made Modern: The Art of Everett Spruce|url=https://www.cartermuseum.org/exhibitions/texas-made-modern-art-everett-spruce|access-date=2021-11-05|website=www.cartermuseum.org|language=en}}</ref> As a member of the Dallas Nine, he contributed to developing a stylistic lexicon that captured realistic and unidealized perspectives of the region,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Carraro|first=Francine|title=Jerry Bywaters: A life in art|date=1994|isbn=0-292-71157-3|edition=1st|location=Austin|oclc=29224673}}</ref> shifting away from the “Old South” view of Texas.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Stewart|first=Rick|title=Lone Star regionalism: The Dallas Nine and their circle, 1928-1945|date=1985|publisher=Texas Monthly Press|others=Dallas Museum of Art|isbn=0-87719-014-3|location=Austin, Tex.|oclc=11370812}}</ref> Regional nature dominated his oeuvre, and a wide array of artistic movements, music, and literature influenced his renderings of it.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=Marian|title=Everett Spruce, Selected Paintings and Drawings|publisher=The University of Texas at Austin|year=1979|location=Austin|pages=7–9}}</ref>

== Early life == Spruce was born to William Everett and Fannie May Spruce, as the oldest of six, in Holland, Arkansas, a small town near Conway.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Texas made modern: The art of Everett Spruce|date=2020|others=Shirley Reece-Hughes, Everett Spruce, S. Janelle Montgomery, Andrew Walker, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, San Antonio Museum of Art|isbn=978-1-62349-889-4|edition=|location=College Station|oclc=1198712959}}</ref> When he was three, his family moved to Adams Mountain, where his father grew apples and peaches.<ref name=":2" /> Spending time atop the mountain in rural Arkansas sparked his curiosity for the natural world and he claimed that sketching landscapes was his way of “understanding things”.<ref name=":2" />

As a teenager, Spruce moved to an area north of Mulberry with his family, where they cultivated corn and cotton.<ref name=":2" /> Outside of schooling and intense labor on the farm, he continued to sharpen his skills in sketching; he soon became known for drawing caricatures of his classmates and sold his work for a nickel apiece.<ref name=":2" />

His intimate connection and exposure to nature throughout his upbringing shaped his art, which often focused on landscape themes. His family's Methodist background, which supports stewardship over the earth, furthered Spruce's philosophical approach to interpreting the natural world.<ref name=":2" />

== Education == When Spruce was in high school, he was presented with the opportunity to meet artists and co-founders of the Dallas Art Institute (DAI), Kathryne Hail Travis and Olin Travis.<ref name=":2" /> Kathryne's mother, Maude Hail, a friend of Spruce's aunt, arranged a meeting while they were visiting Arkansas on a sketching trip.<ref name=":2" /> Impressed with Spruce's drawings, the Travises offered him admission to their institute to study and work for room and board.<ref name=":0" /> Upon graduating from Mulberry High School in 1926, Spruce moved to Dallas to attend DAI, despite his father's disapproval of him pursuing art professionally.<ref name=":2" />

Under Olin's tutelage, Spruce was introduced to the “old masters” and modernist movements like Post-Impressionism and Cubism, which influenced his use of color, form, and perspectives.<ref name=":2" /> He was drawn to works by Cézanne, Braque, Picasso, and Matisse.<ref name=":2" /> Thomas Stell joined the DAI faculty in 1928, and exposed Spruce to a modernist take on learning and adopting styles across different eras, including the Quattrocento; parallels can be seen between some of Spruce's compositions and works by Mantegna and Bellini.<ref name=":2" /> Spruce kept up to date with the everchanging trends in modernism, but remained committed primarily to applying them within the Southwestern aesthetic. He graduated from DAI in 1929.<ref name=":2" />

== Career == In 1931, Spruce was offered a position as a gallery assistant under the director, John S. Ankeney, at the Dallas Public Art Gallery, later renamed the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and now known as the Dallas Museum of Art.<ref name=":2" /> Fortunate to have secured a stable role during the Great Depression, he continued to work at the museum for the following nine years.<ref name=":2" /> In 1936, he was promoted to assistant director and began teaching at the museum.<ref name=":1" />

His work was included in the “Exhibition of Young Dallas Painters” at the Dallas Public Art Gallery in 1932, after which the participating artists were referred to as the Dallas Nine.<ref name=":2" /> He remained close with this group and other contemporaries through the then newly formed Dallas Artists League, a community of artists and patrons dedicated to promoting local art.<ref name=":2" /> His piece ''Suburban Landscape'', and ''Sumac'', by his wife, Alice Kramer, were shown at the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936 among works by other local artists.<ref name=":2" /> He also joined Jerry Bywaters in forming the Lone Star Printmakers group in 1938 to circulate their works on a national scale.<ref name=":2" />

Spruce left the museum in 1940 to join the University of Texas at Austin as a member of its art faculty, and remained there until his retirement in 1974.<ref name=":1" /> Between 1949 and 1951, he served as Chairman of the Department of Art.<ref name=":1" /> He earned his professorship in 1954, and graduate professorship in 1960.<ref name=":1" /> He spent the last thirteen years of his tenure as Director of Graduate Studio Art.<ref name=":1" />

Throughout his career as a museum professional and educator, Spruce continued to paint and participate in exhibitions across the country. His work was selected into exhibitions at the Rockefeller Center, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Witte Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and more.<ref name=":2" /> Many of these museums actively acquired his paintings between the 1930s and 1950s.<ref name=":2" /> Among his many accolades were the Dealey Purchase Prize, first prize in the Midwestern Artist's Exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute, top honors in the Kiest Purchase Prize, and the William W. Crocker Prize at the San Francisco Art Association.<ref name=":2" /> Though he received national acclaim early in his career, as movements like Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism emerged, his work slowly faded into oblivion.<ref name=":3" />

== Work == Spruce often worked in oils, creating textural modulations using thickness and intensity of knife and brush strokes.<ref name=":1" /> He used acrylics in manners similar to his oils, and in some cases, used crayon over acrylics to enhance the richness of his colors.<ref name=":1" /> He used encaustic painting as well to produce vibrant colors and mosaic-like textures.<ref name=":1" /> Many of his ink and charcoal drawings, made both for discipline and in leisure, have also received recognition in exhibitions.<ref name=":1" />

Through his deep response to nature, Spruce steered away from the then traditional renderings of Southwestern landscapes by artists like Frank Reaugh, to capture spirituality and discovery.<ref name=":2" /> Unlike many artists during the Great Depression, he did not focus his work on recounting previous American ideals or highlighting social issues of the time; instead, he interpreted how regional nature paralleled the zeitgeist and universal values through themes of abundance, isolation, renewal, and more.<ref name=":2" /> His work presented near-primitive stylized forms;<ref>{{Cite book|title=The new encyclopedia of Southern culture. Volume 21, Art & architecture|date=2013|others=Judith H. Bonner, Estill Curtis Pennington, University of Mississippi. Center for the Study of Southern Culture|isbn=978-0-8078-6994-9|location=Chapel Hill|oclc=825970770}}</ref> he became known for his angular and distinct renderings of geographical features and flora, which served in alluding to unromanticized and mystic characteristics of the Southwest.<ref name=":2" /> One of his most celebrated works, ''The Hawk'' (1939), currently housed at MoMA,<ref>''[https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79987?artist_id=5575 The Hawk]'', MoMA.</ref> has been construed to reference Thoreau’s description of the bird observing spring's arrival, symbolic of Spruce's hope for recovery and renewal after the Dust Bowl.<ref name=":2" />

Spruce experimented with different styles, and his paintings often reflected changes in artistic trends with each decade throughout his career, without seeming to compromise his unique approach to his work.<ref name=":1" /> Over his seven-decade career, he produced around 800 artworks rooted in his fascination for the natural world.<ref name=":2" />

He rarely engaged in portraiture,<ref name=":2" /> but two of his most notable figurative pieces are ''Twins'' (1939), a rendering of his young twin daughters,<ref>''[https://collections.dma.org/artwork/4222612 Twins]'', Dallas Museum of Art.</ref> and ''Alice'' (1979), a tribute to his wife after her death.

== Collections == Spruce's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Blanton Museum of Art,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Blanton Museum of Art, Collection|url=https://collection.blantonmuseum.org/artist-maker/info/6998}}</ref> Dallas Museum of Art,<ref>{{Cite web|title=DMA Collection Online|url=https://collections.dma.org/search/everett%20spruce|access-date=2021-11-05|website=collections.dma.org|language=en}}</ref> Old Jail Art Center,<ref>{{Cite web|title=OJAC Collection - Everett F. Spruce|url=http://12.201.107.98/artist-maker/info/889?artistName=Everett%20F.%20Spruce|access-date=2021-11-05|website=12.201.107.98}}</ref> Delaware Art Museum,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Everett Spruce|url=https://emuseum.delart.org/people/2017/everett-spruce|access-date=2021-11-05|website=emuseum.delart.org|language=en}}</ref> Metropolitan Museum of Art,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!?q=Everett%20Spruce&perPage=20&sortBy=Relevance&offset=0&pageSize=0|access-date=2021-11-05|website=www.metmuseum.org}}</ref> Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Collection|url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/people/7320/everett-franklin-spruce/objects}}</ref> Wichita Art Museum,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Big Turtle|url=https://wichitaartmuseum.org/our-collection/collection/big-turtle/|access-date=2021-11-05|website=Wichita Art Museum|language=en-US}}</ref> Whitney Museum of American Art,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Everett Spruce|url=https://whitney.org/artists/1264?q%5Bs%5D=sort_date%20desc|access-date=2021-11-05|website=whitney.org|language=en}}</ref> The Phillips Collection,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Everett Spruce|url=https://www.phillipscollection.org/everett-spruce|access-date=2021-11-05|website=www.phillipscollection.org|language=en}}</ref> and MoMA.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Everett Spruce {{!}} MoMA|url=https://www.moma.org/artists/5575|access-date=2021-11-05|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en}}</ref>

== Personal life == In 1934, Spruce married Alice Virginia Kramer, his former classmate at the Dallas Art Institute.<ref name=":2" /> Together, they had four children – twin daughters, Georgia and Alice (born 1937), followed by two sons, William (born 1939) and Henry (born 1944).<ref name=":1" />

== References ==

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spruce, Everett}} Category:20th-century American painters Category:American male painters Category:20th-century American art educators Category:Painters from Arkansas Category:Painters from Texas Category:People from Faulkner County, Arkansas Category:University of Texas at Austin faculty Category:1908 births Category:2002 deaths Category:20th-century American male artists