who?

Who can track the life of an artist? Who would want to? An artist's life is FLUID. This much can be said about Fred Geary. He worked in Kansas City. He was active in the art community of the Fine Art Institute, which always consisted of a pocket of people doing, learning, teaching art. The structure of that institution changed location through the years, but at its core, it was people lending a hand to build, encourage, share "what you know" with another, have moments of "creating art apart from the community," and then rejoining, sharing, and expounding on each other's work, critiquing as it were, laughing, hanging out, being a part, being affiliated with relationships. (Below photo, west side of Kansas City, near Alta Vista, where The Kansas City Society of Artists once met--future post is promised)

Records are scarce. WHO was in WHAT group? WHERE did they gather? All very fluid. The artist's life. Here, Geary's name is given credit for the Institute Brochure, when the school was still at the Phil R. Toll home, on the southwest corner of Warwick and Armour Boulevards.

"Interest in the Art Institute was increasing, as was enrollment. In 1922, a brochure listed classes in design, illustration, interior decorating, costume design, fashion, wood carving, drawing, lettering, commercial art, sculpture and industrial art. There were also special classes in jewelry, home crafts such as batik, gesso, lamp shades, ceramics, weaving, basketry. The catalogue was profusely illustrated with examples of student art including work by Ruth Alexander, Illah Marion Kibbey, Lora Wilkins, Fred Geary, Doris Prat, Gene Thornton, Leroy D. MacMoris, L.F. Wilford, Delle Miller. Costs were day classes, per week, $3.50; evening classes, per week, $1.50; children's classes, Saturdays, 50 cents; holiday classes Sunday mornings, 60 cents." (A History of Community Achievement 1885-1964 by Mazee Bush Owens and Frances S. Bush, page 9, accessed from Jannes Library, Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010).

Geary took part in the Midwestern Artist Exhibitions in 1929, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936, 1939, 1941, and 1942 (Midwestern Artists' Exhibition of 1928 by Cynthia Mines, Kansas City Art Institute, 1920-1942, accessed from Kansas City Public Library, accessed Saturday, February, 20th, 2010).

He was the treasurer of the Kansas City Society of Artists in 1933.(Fred Geary, Missouri Wood Engraver by E.H. Deines, 1946, unpublished, page three, courtesy of Ms. Jane Metz and the Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton, MO, accessed January 10, 2010)

All the while he was rooted in daily graphic art assignments through the Fred Harvey Company at the UNION STATION where he has his studio. (Below photo, printed label of his studio location, attached to backside of framed print in Carrollton Public Library,
Fred Geary collection)


It's like the "Missouri Art Icon," Thomas Hart Benton. It is a given that Benton talked with students in his painting class while at the Kansas City Art Institute. He listened to the ideas of fellow faculty members. He invited persons of like-minded interest over to his house for social interaction. He was on the same committee as Geary when Graphic Art entries were being selected for the 1939 World's Fair held in New York City. Still, it is difficult to peer into "the-unseen-world-of-artists-forming-relationships" and then "map out" how they grew in their own work because of their interactions with those they admire. Geary had this, I am sure. This blog will explore the facets it can find. The rest of it will be left to another to find, to savor, and publish his or her findings.

K.M.

Harvey Company artist

"..the work at Harvey's called for versatility - depiction in black and white as well as color on extremely varying scales. Sometimes it dealt with historical material or such rich lore as is particularly related to the great Southwest, most of which lent itself to the style of publicity and promotional schemes the Harvey concern aimed to feature." (Fred Geary, Missouri Wood Engraver by E.H. Deines, 1946, unpublished, page two, courtesy of Ms. Jane Metz and the Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton, MO, accessed January 10, 2010)

Postcard graphic (left) by Fred Geary (double click on image to enlarge)

Second postcard image, click HERE.
Geary worked as a commercial art illustrator for the Fred Harvey Company at the Union Station Terminal (below), Kansas City, MO

"He was employed in the art department... a position held immediately after art school days were over. There the assignments ranged from decorative motifs used on candy boxes, vividly ornamented menu cards, boldly designed playing-card backs, (and later) to murals in the topmost section of a stone tower marking a Grand Canyon tourist attraction." (Fred Geary, Missouri Wood Engraver by E.H. Deines, 1946, unpublished, page two, courtesy of Ms. Jane Metz and the Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton, MO, accessed January 10, 2010)

Harvey artist Fred Geary worked with Mary Colter on at least four buildings, including the Desert View Watchtower in Grand Canyon National Park. (KCHistory, www.kchistory.org, accessed Sunday, May 23, 2010)

The following information all comes from this source: Berke, Arnold. Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. (My Hero, www.myhero.com, accessed Sunday, May 23, 2010)

"The execution of Colter's concept of decorating with sand painting unfolded as a sometimes touchy cultural ballet. The search for paintings that would accurately represent the Navajo ritual works led her and Huckel to Sam Day, Jr, a well-known Indian trader in St. Michaels, Arizona, who had developed a close and knowledgeable relationship with the Navajos. Day supplied them with eighty-four watercolors of sand paintings made by four Navajo singers from 1902 to 1905. From these, Harvey Company artist Fred Geary, aided by prominent Navajo medicine man Miguelito, who had worked for Harvey at the 1915 San Diego and San Francisco expositions, painted large copies of twelve of the sand paintings on El Navajo's walls." p.135-136. [El Navajo in Gallup, New Mexico, 1923.]








Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, As Seen by Trail and Drive. [Grand Canyon, AR]: Fred Harvey, [1927]. Art by Fred Geary.

"Hanging in each room was a picture of San Ysidro, the patron saint of farming and gardening, a hand-colored linoleum-block print created by Harvey artist Fred Geary that depicted the saint standing behind a plow with oxen and attended by guardian angels, conveying the essence of La Posada's make-the-desert-bloom aura." p.174-175. [La Posada in Winslow, Arizona, 1930.]

6 1/2 by 10 1/2 inch watercolor of southwest Indian by Fred Geary, no date (below).(courtesy of Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton, MO)












"Harvey artist Fred Geary painted the walls and ceilings of these galleries, copying pictographs (images painted on rock) and petroglyphs from originals at sites in the Southwest that Colter had visited or studied. Here one encounters gods and monsters, humans, birds and animals (real and mythical), flowers, rainbows and other heavenly phenomena, geometric contrivances, and even handprints. The ceiling decoration over the upper level is an adaptation of rock paintings at the Abo caves in central New Mexico. Colter based the design on drawing that Herman Schweizer had made in 1908 on a trip to the caves (actually cliff alcoves). Among them is a thunder-bird he sketched that was adopted as a trademark by the Harvey Company and used on stationary and in company publications. On the stairwell to the third level are painting copied from pottery found at ruins of the Mimbres Indians in southwestern New Mexico." p. 204-205 [Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 1932.]

(Above) Sample of bright-colored Geary watercolor (courtesy of Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton Missouri, accessed May 15, 2010)
"Once again Colter brought in Harvey artist Fred Geary, this time to paint designs in turquoise, magenta, deep purple, orange, and green between the layers of double-glazed windows. The panes washed the lounge in the afternoon with tinted sunlight." p.247-248 [La Cocina Cantina, the new cocktail lounge at the Alvarado Hotel, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1940.](Email from Betty Betty Upchurch, Librarian, Grand Canyon National Park Research Library, Grand Canyon, Wednesday, May 19th, 2010)

I believe more could be documented about Geary's work for the Harvey Company. Suffice it to say here, that he was, in fact, on the art department staff in Kansas City. This particular blog will focus on the history of his wood engravings. That said, the following email suggests that Geary was very mobile. Train travel on the Santa Fe routes was as important back then as the super highway we call the "Internet" today.

"I do not know if Fred Geary had a residence in Arizona or not. However, I do know that Mary Colter had a residence in Kansas City, but was almost never home. She was constantly on the Santa Fe trains or staying in Fred Harvey hotels the entire time she worked for the company. Possibly, Fred Geary had a similar arrangement and lived in the Harvey hotels."
(Email from Betty Upchurch, Librarian, Grand Canyon National Park Research Library, Wednesday, May 19th, 2010)

Pueblo image by Fred Geary, click HERE
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For those that missed the original C-SPAN2 Book TV broadcasts, author Stephen Fried's presentation on "Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West" is now available online via streaming video by clicking the video link in the upper right column of that page:
Click HERE to view Appetite For America - BookTV - C-Span Video Library (video is 49 minutes)

"(Mr) Harvey spent a enormous amount of his life on the road. He was a railroad-warrior. He was a freight agent for the railroad for almost twenty years, before he started the restaurant empire you all know him for."

Stephen Fried, adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University Graduate School, recounts the life of Fred Harvey, one of the earliest innovators of the American hospitality industry. Mr. Harvey, was the proprietor of sixty-five restaurants and lunch counters along the Santa Fe Railroad and several hotels from Chicago to Los Angeles. Mr. Fried examines how Fred Harvey's restaurant and hotel locations dovetailed with westward expansion and how the Harvey House became a part of the American lexicon and a precursor to today's fast food franchises. Stephen Fried discusses his book at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. (email link from Brian Kreimendahl, Edgewood, New Mexico, accessed Monday, April 19, 2010)

10 Great Places to follow Fred Harvey's Old West tracks, click HERE.