Introduction by Danielle Knapp The David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Collection: Stewarding a Legacy

Introduction

The David John McCosh and Anne Kutka McCosh Memorial Collection: Stewarding a Legacy

Danielle M. Knapp

THE WORKS OF DAVID (1903–81) and Anne Kutka McCosh (1902–94), both accomplished painters with natural talents and formal training, would have been no less impressive had the couple not left such a sizable collection of finished and unfinished artworks, ranging from sketchbooks and small studies to large framed canvases, to the University of Oregon to allow for future study and enjoyment. How fortunate we are that such a generous gift was, in fact, arranged by Kutka McCosh in the years following her husband’s passing. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is grateful to have been entrusted with not only the largest repository of both of these artists’ works and related materials from their personal archive, but also the responsibility of sharing these treasures with the public. The Memorial Collection presents a wealth of possibilities for in-depth research, exhibition development, and continued connoisseurship.

What is especially remarkable about David McCosh’s prolific career as a painter (he preferred this more accurate designation over the generic title of “artist”) is that it was evenly matched by the depth of his commitment to his students at the University of Oregon. His teaching career spanned decades but its impact did not end with his retirement in 1970. When one hears from his former students how indelible a mark McCosh made on their appreciation of the creative process, their understanding of color harmonies, their self-discipline as artists, and their own painting practice, it can be hard to imagine how such a dedicated instructor ever found the time and energy outside of teaching to work in his own studio—much

The couple on their wedding day, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 1934. Unknown photographer, McCosh Memorial Archive

less create the hundreds upon hundreds of drawings, prints, and paintings that he produced.

Archival documents and letters reveal how seriously McCosh weighed decisions that might upset the balance between his teaching and painting. In 1940, he declined the invitation to complete a mural for the Eugene Post Office and the commission was later awarded to Carl Morris (letter from David McCosh to Edward Rowan, Assistant Director of the Section of Fine Arts, August 8, 1940). He explained, “I regret very much that at this time I do not feel that I could do justice to the commission and therefore cannot accept it. I am committed to a full program for the coming year which will give me less time than ever to paint. [. . .] Broken time is extremely unsatisfactory for important work and it is too late for me to arrange for a leave of absence [from teaching duties at the University of Oregon].” Three important sabbaticals from the University of Oregon would come later: to the Washington coast, Mexico, and New Mexico

(1949–50), to Europe and Morocco (1958–59), and a return to the American Southwest and Mexico (1965–66). Anne Kutka McCosh accompanied him and also painted during all of these travels.

As we now know, and as will be explored in much greater depth in Mr. Saydack’s writings that follow this introduction, these breaks from teaching and opportunities to travel were formative for McCosh. The greatest leaps in his own growth and development as a painter did not occur within the walls of the Art Department classrooms in Lawrence Hall. In total, McCosh’s time spent outside the United States equaled less than four years, a blink of an eye within the long lifespan of a man who passed away at age 78 (McCosh’s earliest trip abroad was a period of eight months in England, France, Ireland, and Italy funded by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s John Quincy Adams scholarship, 1928–29; Kutka McCosh had previously visited Mexico in 1931 on a Gladys Roosevelt Dick Studio travel scholarship). But the reach of these years was long. Periods spent at the Pacific coastline, as a visiting instructor in Montana and Michigan, and at his cabin along Horse Creek east of Eugene were particularly stimulating.

McCosh also sustained an incredibly active schedule of exhibiting his work. His paintings were featured in one-man or group shows nearly every year for the entire period that he lived in Oregon, up to a

David and Anne McCosh on sabbatical in Mexico, 1966. Unknown photographer, McCosh Memorial Archive

solo exhibition at the Governor’s Office in Salem the year before he passed away. Retrospectives followed at the University of Oregon Museum of Art (now JSMA) in 1985, the Littman Gallery at Portland State University in 1986, and again at the University of Oregon Museum of Art in 1993 (David McCosh Exhibition Series, curated by Craig Cheshire and Bonnie Butler) and 2000 (Community Favorites from the David McCosh Collection). Since the establishment of a full-time curatorial position to manage the collection in 2010, the JSMA has mounted the exhibitions The Making of David McCosh: Early Paintings, Drawings, and Prints (2011), David McCosh’s Eugene, and McCosh in Europe (both 2014–15), and started a series of annual lithography shows (2016)—All of which have involved university students in research, checklist development, and other curatorial tasks.

Anne Kutka McCosh’s contribution to the arts has had less scholarly attention, though the body of work that she created (beginning with her education at the New York Art Students League in the 1920s) evidences her remarkable skill and, especially, her instincts for portraiture. Before her marriage, she worked and exhibited in New York City and was the recipient of the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship at Oyster Bay in both 1928 and 1930, the latter at which she met her future husband. Kutka McCosh typically demurred from exhibiting her own paintings and drawings after the couple’s move to Oregon, but posthumous gallery shows and essays have reinvigorated a long-overdue and much-deserved focus on the work that she created over the course of her long and productive life.

Kutka McCosh’s foresight in establishing the Memorial Museum Endowment Fund in 1990 has preserved not only her husband’s legacy as she had hoped, but has allowed for the widespread appreciation of her work in the years since her death in 1994. Over the past two decades, many former staff and students have played major roles in carrying out Kutka McCosh’s wishes for the collection: Lawrence Fong, retired curator of American and regional art; Jean Nattinger, retired registrar; Colleen Thomas, former assistant registrar; June Black, former associate curator, and alumni Mary Helen Burnham, Claudia Fischer, Aleksandra Globig, Lindsay Keast, Kathleen Metzger, Deborah Sepulveda, Merrit Thompson, and Jessica Wilks.

The exhibition of the McCoshes’ works in and beyond this community, their dissemination to other public collections through loan or gift placement, and the creation of publications to serve as records of exhibitions and research are equally vital in order to fulfill our mission. There is no better example of how this art collection and its archive have been mined, reinterpreted, and appreciated outside of the university than the series of focused exhibitions that Mr. Saydack has curated over the past ten years. His and gallerist Karin Clarke’s mutual dedication to keeping this material in the public eye has continually reinvigorated appreciation of it. Rather than wane, as those who knew the McCoshes best during their lifetimes have passed on, interest in both painters’ work has actually continued to grow. The tremendous responses to the exhibitions at the Karin Clarke Gallery and Schrager & Clarke Gallery are proof.

As the current steward of these works, I am delighted that this compilation of essays and accompanying illustrations will strengthen this important legacy. It will serve as a record of not only the shows that Mr. Saydack has curated, but the groundwork laid thus far in our shared commitment to promote the understanding and appreciation of David and Anne McCosh’s contributions to the arts.