Artist Information

Murray Percival Bewley Born 1884 - Died 1956 Murray Percival Bewley is most often noted for his oil portraits of children, and, to a lesser extend, his watercolor landscapes.  He is considered by some to have been the leading Texas portrait painter of the twentieth century, although he spent much time away from Texas. Bewley was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas in June 1884 and graduated from high school there.  His initial exposure to art training was in Fort Worth with a teacher named Virginia Linnen, and they he went to Denver where he studied at the Denver Students School of Art during summer school.  He also studied at the Art Institute in Chicago, the National Academy of Design in New York, and the Pennsylvania Fine Art Academy in Philadelphia.  William Merritt Chase, Celia Beaux and Robert Henri are some of the well-known artists with whom he studied, and in 1906 he went to Florence, Italy with Chase and then to Paris when Chase advised him to establish a studio and stay out of school Bewley was a traveler most of his career, although he continued to return to Fort Work, Texas to paint portraits of friends and family.  He spent time in Paris, France, between 1905 and 1910, and his works were seen in the Paris Salons through 1914.  In 1913, he returned to Forth Worth where he spent time painting.  Then he moved to California until the mid-1930s when he returned to Paris.  After that he returned to California, living in Beverly Hills, and then again went to France where he died in 1956 in Lyons. Memberships for Bewley include the Allied Artists of America, the Salmagundi Club, and the Texas Fine Arts Association.  Among his exhibition venues are the Paris Salon, 1908-1909; the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Source:  John and Deborah Powers, "Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists"

BEWLEY, MURRAY PERCIVAL (1884-1964). Murray Percival Bewley, painter, son of Murray P. and Hallie C. (Samuel) Bewley, was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on June 19, 1884. His first art teacher was Mrs. W. J. Lennin of Fort Worth. His mother, a patron of art, inspired him to develop his skills. He studied with Henry Read at the Denver Art School, for two years at the Chicago Art Institute, and subsequently at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Cecilia Beaux. In New York, while studying with Robert Henri and William Merrit Chase, Bewley was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to accompany Chase to Florence, Italy. Afterward, he lived in Paris from 1906 until 1913, continued to study, and exhibited regularly at the Salon. That year he returned to Fort Worth and set up a studio. In 1916 he married Bernice Wren of Fort Worth, and they moved to New York, where they stayed until 1924. In New York Bewley had his first one-man show at Ferargils Gallery. He won first prize at the Salmagundi Club in 1921 and from then until the early 1930s exhibited regularly at the Metropolitan Studio and at the Macbeth, Babcock Grand Central, and Milch galleries in New York. In 1930, after the death of his wife, he returned to Europe. Thereafter he only occasionally visited Fort Worth, to paint portraits of family and friends. He took up residence in Paris, where he married Mireille Laurent in 1933. In 1939 he returned to Fort Worth, and in 1940 he painted the last of his Fort Worth portraits. The Bewleys moved to Beverly Hills, California, in the early 1940s. During this period Bewley continued to exhibit in New York and Los Angeles galleries. In 1956 he returned to France. He died in Lyons in September 1964 after an operation. The Fort Worth Art Center mounted a memorial exhibition of his work that October. The majority of Bewley's subjects are portraits and nudes. However, the works completed near the end of his life are primarily still lifes and flower compositions. His work is characterized by a soft, loose brush stroke, and his palette often consists of violets and opalescent colors. Bewley was a member of the Paris-American Artists Association, the Allied Artists of America, the New York Society of Artists, and the Salmagundi Club. His work is represented in the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,qqv and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frances Battaile Fisk, A History of Texas Artists and Sculptors (Abilene, Texas, 1928; facsimile rpt., Austin: Morrison, 1986). Esse Forrester-O'Brien, Art and Artists of Texas (Dallas: Tardy, 1935). Fort Worth Art Center, Memorial Exhibition: Murray Bewley (1884-1964) (October 1964). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Vertical Files, Dallas Museum of Art. Rebecca H. Green From: Handbook of Texas on Line: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/BB/tbe91.html

Lloyd Branson Born 1854 - Died 1925 From Tennessee Encyclopedia:  http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/ Artist Lloyd Branson was born in Union County in 1854 and spent his life in the Knoxville area. In 1871, at age seventeen, he exhibited at the East Tennessee Division Fair and received favorable notice. As a result, Branson moved to New York in 1873 to study at the National Academy of Design, where he won a first prize in 1875. That allowed him to travel to Europe, but in 1876 he was back in Knoxville. The exposure to the art schools and art movements in Europe gave Branson an advantage over the other regional artists working in Knoxville in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1885 he won a medal at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. In 1910 Branson won a gold medal at Knoxville's Appalachian Exposition for Hauling Marble. That painting is now in the McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee. His interest in regional history resulted in a number of paintings that depict historical subjects, such as the Gathering of the Overmountain Men at Sycamore Shoals and the Sheep Shearing incident where John Sevier met his future wife. The Tennessee State Museum has these two paintings and a number of portraits by Branson, including those of John Haywood, J. G. M. Ramsey, John L. Cox, James B. Frazier, D. L. Lansden, Dewitt Clinton Senter, Peter Turney, Alvin C. York, Montgomery Stuart, Hester Thompson Stuart, and James Allen Smith. In a partnership with Frank McCrary from 1885 to 1903, Branson became a leader in the East Tennessee arts community. Branson died on June 12, 1925. His wife Mollie Wilson Branson survived him until 1951.  - James A. Hoobler, Tennessee State Museum The following is from http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/3aa/3aa311.htm, an electronic version written by Celia Walker when she was at Cheekwood Museum of Art. Lloyd Branson (1853-1925) was one of a handful of 19th century Tennessee painters to study at the National Academy of Design in New York City.  The 1873-74 student roster of the National Academy of Design (founded 1826) lists Lloyd Branson and "W. Gaul" (William Gilbert Gaul, 1855-1919) as students in the Antique School along with such classmates as Abbott Thayer, Thomas Anschutz, and Frederic Church.  At the Academy, students were trained to paint first from antique casts and then from live models.  Teachers at the Academy were steeped in the academic tradition, having trained in Europe, often at the royal academies, and they taught their students to believe in the dignity of fine art.  Their pupils returned to Tennessee imbued with the desire to paint grand pictures, only to discover that there were few opportunities to make a living beyond portrait painting. Lloyd Branson, fresh from New York and studies in Europe, established a new level of quality for painting in East Tennessee. He, in turn, taught the next generation of painters in Knoxville (Catherine Wiley, Adelia Lutz and Beauford Delaney, among others) and helped and encouraged many of them to obtain formal art training.  Branson returned to Knoxville when it stood on the verge of an economic boom, as evident through its Appalachian exposition in the early 1900s.  Still, it must have been difficult to leave that celebrated sphere of New York City in 1876 and return to a place where Branson really had no peers. (left: Enoch Lloyd Branson (American, 1853-1925), Hauling Marble, 1910, oil on canvas, Courtesy of The Frank H. McClung Museum at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 37 x 54 12 inches)

Leslie H. Morrill Born 1934 - Died 2003 OBITUARY NOTICE:  Born February 10, 1934, in Hudson, NH; died of cancer June 23, 2003, in Washington, DC.  Artist, educator, and illustrator, Morrill was an award-winning children's book illustrator.  Originally contemplating becoming a dancer, he was talented in tap but decided not to make it his profession because the physically demanding career would likely not last long.  Instead, he decided to focus on art and enrolled in the Boston Museum School of Art.  His studies were interrupted by a stint in the Air Force during the mid-1950s, but then he returned to Boston and completed his certificate in 1960, as well as earning a B.S. in art education from Tufts University that same year.  Morrill also attended graduate courses in art at the Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.  He subsequently took a job as a public school art supervisor in Groton, Connecticut for four years, followed by work as an assistant professor at Slippery Rock State college from 1967 ro 1969.  Deciding he needed to be more serious about being an artist, he quit his college position to work as a freelance book illustrator.  Beginning with Anne Eliot Crompton's 1971 book, The Sorcerer, Morrill found great success in his new chosen occupation, and contributed illustrations--mostly to children's book--throughout the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s.  His work appears in more than one hundred books, and he became especially well known for his animal illustrations.  This talent, he later explained, came from his years as a child and teenager at Benson's Wild Animal Farm, an outdoor zoo near his home town where he worked with many wild and domestic animals.  Morrill won countless prizes for his art, including two American Institute of Graphic Art awards and number Children's Book of the Year citations from such well-known children's authors as Eve Bunting, Matt Christopher, Kenneth, Grahame, George Selden, Walter Dean Myers, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Judy Delton, and Mary Calhoun.  He also illustrated the quirky "Bunnicula" series by James Howe and the Freddy books by Walter R. Brooks.  In addition to his children's book illustrations, Morrill also created original art for puzzles, as well as pursuing a painting career.

Hugh M. Poe Born 1902 in Dallas, TX  Died ? Lived in Indiana Teachers:  Charles Hawthorne and William Forsyth

Catherine Wiley Born 1879 - Died 1958 Born in Coal Creek, Tennessee, but raised in Knoxville, Catherine Wiley attended the University of Tennessee, and then spent two years with Frank DuMond at the Art Students League in New York.  Returning to Knoxville in 1905, she began a thirteen-year teaching stint at the University, while also pursuing a career in painting.  She exhibited locally, at the National Academy of Design in New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.  In 1910, she won the H. J. Cook gold medal at the Appalachian Exposition.  In 1912 the artist returned briefly to New York to study with the American Impressionist Robert Reid, whose style she admired, and in 1914 or 1915, she worked with Jonas Lie at the New York School of Applied Arts on Long Island. Around 1912, influenced by Reid, Wiley adopted an impressionist style and began to paint scenes of women in comfortable interiors, or out-of-doors in sun-drenched gardens.  Characteristically, the figures are depicted in floral environments, dressed in white, or in soft pastel colors, and almost always carrying parasols. (In Morning, from this collection, a backdrop of luscious green foliage and tall slender lilies offer a pleasing contract to the figure's white gown, and the vigorous brushwork created a rich, textured surface.) Wiley's career was sadly cut short in 1926 when a mental breakdown forced her to be hospitalized.  She spent the rest of her life in an institution, never painting again.  (From www.askart.com) Additional Information at the site for the University of Tennessee's Special Collections: http://dic.lib.utk.edu/f/fa/fulltext/1287.html.  They house the Anna Catherine Wiley Sketches Collection (approx. 150 sketches.  This is their biography listing which might be more reliable than the one on AskArt. Though never gaining the experience necessary to bring wide recognition and lasting fame, Catherine Wiley's career is now regarded as that of an important early 20th century painter. After completing her studies at the University of Tennessee, Miss Wiley left Knoxville to study at the Art Students League in New York, and spent several summers in New England painting with Robert Reid and other prominent artists. The experience in a thriving art center, and the exposure to the work of artists like Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt, must have been responsible for the new impressionistic quality her style began to reflect. Subsequently returning to her hometown of Knoxville, Miss Wiley joined the University of Tennessee faculty as an art instructor, and continued to paint with an international flavor that lead her to be grouped with a body of artists referred to as American Impressionists. Prior to her formal training in New York, "Kate" Wiley, as a student at the University of Tennessee, was responsible for rendering many illustrations for the university's yearbook, the Volunteer. This collection is mostly comprised of pieces from the early stages of her career while a student at the University of Tennessee. Most of these appear rough, but a few are endowed with deftly controlled, expressive strokes that capture the vitality of the artist's subjects, and reveal Miss Wiley's considerable talent.

Eleanor McAdoo Wiley Born 1876 - Died 1977 Eleanor McAdoo Wiley was born in Coal Creek, Tennessee.  She studied at the University of Tennessee and the Stevens Art School in Gatlinburg.  She painted still-lifes of flowers, landscapes with historic houses, and portraits.  She was the older sister of Catherine Wiley. She was founder of the Knoxville Art Center, later known as the Dulin Gallery of Art, and a member of the Nicholson Art League.  He work is in the McClung Historical Collection in Knoxville and in the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia, among other collections.