MARY HUNTOON (1896-1970) • KANSAS INTEREST • ETCHING * ABSTRACTIONIST

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MARY HUNTOON (1896-1970) • KANSAS INTEREST • ETCHING * ABSTRACTIONIST:
$138.38

Limited edition etching titled Abstractionist (maybe the portrait of a Japanese artist in Paris). Titled, numbered 1/20; 1st state; and signed by the artist in pencil.

Dimensions: Image 9 1/4” x 7 1/4”; Sheet 12” x 10 1/8”; Matted to size 20” x 16”. Unfortunately, there are tape marks in the top and side margins and a slight mat burn from a previous framing. I do not know if they can be removed by a paper conservator, but when matted, the visible image is very good.

A very rare print.

Mary Huntoon, Art Therapist, Author, Director (Administration), Educator, Lecturer, Teacher, and World Traveler, inherited her precocious penchant for drawing from her stepfather who was a cartoonist and columnist in Topeka, Kansas.

Huntoon’s academic training started at Washburn University in 1920, where she studied in her stepfather’s studio and with distinguished Kansas artist George M. Stone. She enrolled at The Art Student’s League in New York and for six years studied under Robert Henri, George Bridgman, Frank Vincent Du Mond, and Joseph Pennell. Huntoon’s world expanded when Pennell persuaded her to travel to Paris. Living in the Latin Quarter for five years, Huntoon sketched the buildings, people, and scenes that surrounded her. Her works were exhibited in the Salon d’Automne of 1929, as well as at the Salon des Indépendants.

Always seeking complete immersion into her art, Huntoon’s work took her across the world: she traveled, worked, and exhibited in the US, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and Alaska.

Starting in 1934, Huntoon’s leadership bloomed as a director for the WPA Federal Art Project in Kansas. She was also a pioneering figure of art therapy, directing programs for the Menninger Foundation and later for the Winter Veteran’s Hospital. Huntoon carried out research in art therapy while she was employed at Winter V.A. Hospital and wrote several articles on the subject which were published. Huntoon believed in the power of art to heal, and encouraged her patients, whom she called \"students,\" to engage with materials in a studio setting without external disruption. She devoted 16 years of her career to working with psychiatric patients and World War II veterans through art. Prize, Kansas Women Painters, Wichita, KS, USA (1936). Artist retrospective(s): Beyond the Drawing Room: The Art of Mary Huntoon (1896-1970); Salina Art Center, Salina, KS, USA (1994); Retrospective, Topeka Performing Arts Center, Topeka, KS, USA (1977); The Paintings and Drawings Retrospective: Mary Huntoon, Topeka Public Library, Topeka, KS, USA (1970).

She contributed art work to many exhibitions, won numerous awards, and her paintings and etchings are permanently displayed in the Topeka Public Library, Washburn University, the Salina Art Association, the Philadelphia Art Museum, and numerous public buildings across the state of Kansas.

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