Newly Discovered Paintings and Drawings by Anne McCosh October 2010 Fortunately, Anne’s newly discovered works had not deteriorated any further during storage, likely because they had never been handled during all the years they were in the box. So they were properly matted for the first time and prepared for exhibition in the Memories show. This “new’’ work is so closely related to the work I described in the essay Anne McCosh: One Remarkable Woman that there was no need to write a separate essay for the show. But what a delight it was to present a group of her wonderful drawings that we didn’t even
THE EXHIBITION Memories: Paintings and Drawings by
know existed—including a number of portraits of
Anne McCosh was a result of the “discovery” in the
young children whom Anne depicted so beautifully,
McCosh Memorial Archive at the Jordan Schnitzer
several of which are reproduced below. The “lost box”
Museum of Art of a previously unknown group
of Anne McCosh works was a real find that was well
of works on paper by Anne McCosh. The box was
worth the many hours of sifting and working through
labeled many years earlier as containing unfinished
the large amount of material that Anne left to the
works by David. But as I looked through the contents
University of Oregon Foundation as part of the David
of the box with members of the Museum’s staff, it was
and Anne McCosh Memorial Collection.
clear that, in fact, it contained a small group of Anne’s characteristic and insightful portraits together with a few works that showed her distinctive treatment of other subjects, including landscape scenes of some of the same places in Oregon that David had painted. No one knew that these works had survived. I had known that Anne did not have a very high regard for her own work, and this was evidenced by the casual manner in which these works had been set aside, undoubtedly by her some fifty years earlier. She must have re-used the simple cardboard box that at one time contained David’s unfinished studies. She didn’t use an acid-free archival box for her own work or even bother to re-label the old box she did use. What a difference there was in the way she handled his work and hers. The works in the old box were not matted; they were stacked in a pile with sheets of wax paper casually inserted between a few drawings to separate them. Several of the works had been tattered and even badly torn in the distant past. This was in contrast to the careful manner in which Anne insisted that all of David’s works on paper be carefully matted and wrapped for storage consistent with the best archival practices. 56
Anne Kutka McCosh Untitled (Young Boy), circa 1960s Charcoal on paper, 15 x 17 3/4 inches Private collection
