ETHEL MAGAFAN (1916-1993)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

“To name an object is to suppress three quarters of the enjoyment…to suggest, that is the dream!” – Quote over Ethel Magafan’s studio door

Ethel Magafan was a skilled painter from a very young age who closely followed the philosophy of her first and most influential art teacher, Frank Mechau (1904-1946). At the Broadmoor Art Academy, Mechau taught aspiring artists to universalize specific locale, a philosophy later referred to as the Western School of Realism. Magafan quickly internalized these concepts, basing many of her early landscapes on the rural areas surrounding her hometown of Colorado Springs. Denver Art Museum director Donald J. Bear once reviewed Magafan’s and her sister Jenne’s work by stating that “their study of local detail makes them appear as little Brueghels of ranch genre – natural and unforced” (Colorado Springs Art Center).

This skill also became vitally important to her work as a muralist during the Depression because she was able to go to an assigned location and chose a subject of regional importance. These murals communicated the uplifting potential and history within a specific place and thus spoke directly to their audience. Art historian Karal Ann Marling wrote that post office murals like those Magafan painted came to symbolize a “collective act of faith…the murals were bridges, anchored at one end in the past and vaulting over the present into the world of tomorrow” (Trenton 231).

While practical training gave Ethel the tools needed to further her early career as a muralist, it soon became clear that the government sponsorship she sought would also greatly influence the topics of her work. One of her earliest submissions to the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts was a study of The Lawrence Massacre for the Post Office of Fort Scott, Kansas. The subject was described by the artist as a “tragic event in this town” and that during this time she was “rather naïve” to believe that this subject matter would be accepted (Trenton 230). However, following this lesson, Magafan soon found ways to integrate her aims with local needs as well as government bureaucracy. The result was a stunning seven mural commissions throughout the United States. She focused her subjects mainly on local agriculture and industry but continued to subtlety push against the limitations of neutral subject matter. During the extremely segregated period of the history of the South, she completed a mural for the Wynne Post Office in Arkansas that depicted Black workers in a noble light. As art historian Susan Valades-Despena states, the mural held the “unmistakable message that…competent African-American men are entitled to evaluate the worth of their own labor” (Frangos 73).

When available WPA projects began to diminish in the 1940s, Magafan refocused her work on easel painting where she remained successful. Her painting style focused on using a palate knife and egg tempera almost exclusively to harmonize the colors within her landscapes. Prior to Magafan’s relocation in 1945 to Woodstock, New York, she had always shared a studio with twin sister Jenne. The twins exhibited as a pair on numerous occasions, yet insisted that they maintain their individuality as artists. The issue of maintaining her own unique style resurfaced in 1946 when she married fellow artist Bruce Currie. Magafan and Currie kept their artistic ideas separate and kept their studios on opposite ends of the house. They would offer helpful comments about the other’s work, but only when asked. One particularly memorable anecdote occurred when Ethel struggled to complete a painting. Upon asking for her husband’s advice, Currie stated “‘it looks like you have two paintings here. You have one thing going on over here and another going on over here.’ Her response? ‘Get the saw—we’ll cut this painting in two.’” The end result was two perfectly formed works (Frangos 82).

Following Magafan’s trip to Greece and the subsequent sudden death of her twin sister less than a week after the group’s return, her landscapes became much more abstract. She began to seek out the feeling of the scene rather than an exact representation of the view. She also worked in hues that ignored local colors. However, this new style did not negate her lessons from Mechau. She began to take annual sketching trips back to Colorado, thus gaining inspiration for her work throughout the year. Art critic Raymond J. Steiner describes her work as: “a grand vision, one that brings a bracing whiff of mountain air to the confines of a gallery space” and uses the “theme of the outside world [to bring] the viewer ‘inside’ the work” (Steiner). Her use of abstracted color creates a symbolic environment and emphasizes a natural world where man and animal become the least important elements included in a painting. Overall, simplicity, open space, and timelessness became the focus of Magafan’s work, thus allowing one to see the steady progression through her career from social realist to abstract landscapist. All the while, she remained true to her initial artistic philosophy.

AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS

1949 Tiffany Fellowship
1951 Fulbright Grant
1952 Hallmark Award
1964 Ranger Award
1955 Purchase Prize, American Water Color Society
1956 Altman Prize, National Academy of Design
1956 Purchase Prize, Los Angeles County Fair
1962 Audubon Artists Medal of Honor, National Academy of Design
1970 Childe Hassam Purchase Award, Academy of Arts and Letters
Halgarten Award, National Academy of Design

American Watercolor Society
Audubon Artists Incorporated
National Academy of Design
Woodstock Artists Association
WPA/Federal Arts Projec

COLLECTIONS

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL
Denver Art Museum, CO
Des Moines Art Center, IA
Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, CO
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY
Museum of Modern Art, NY
National Academy of Design, New York City
National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.
Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA
United States Department of the Interior, Washington D.C.
Wichita Art Museum, KS
Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, NY

CHRONOLOGY

1916 Born October 10 in Chicago, Illinois
1930 First government commission for Post Office mural in Auburn, Nebraska
1936-1938 Studies at the Fine Arts Centre in Colorado Springs
1940 First solo exhibition at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in New York
1941 Relocated to Los Angeles
1943 Paints the mural The Battle of New Orleans for Recorder of Deeds
1945 Settles in Woodstock, New York
1946 Marries fellow artist Bruce Currie
1949 Paints the mural Mountains and Snow with her twin sister Jenne
1952 Travels to Greece
1952 Twin sister Jenne dies of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 36
1956 Daughter Jenne Magafan Currie born
1968 Elected an Academician of the National Academy of Design
1973 Paints last mural, Grant in the Wilderness
1973 Teaches as Artist-in-Residence for University of Georgia, Athens
1976 Teaches at Syracuse University
1993 Died April 24 at the age of 76 in Woodstock, New York

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Frangos, Steve. “The Twin Muses: Ethel and Jenne Magafan.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. 31.2 p. 59-94.
2. Trenton, Patricia. Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West 1890-1945. University of California Press: 1995.
3. Tufts, Eleanor. American Women Artists 1830-1930. International Exhibitions Foundation for the National Museum of Women in the Arts Washington DC: 1987.
4. Twine, Tinker. “Late Ethel Magafan leaves legacy of murals and paintings.” Woodstock Times. 27 May 1993. p. 34.