I tried a new search last week as I was looking for information pertaining to the Milwaukee panorama painters and Amy Tesch Boos. It might sound like a simple thing, but a search in any database has to be carefully calculated. You need to anticipate all of the possible results and create your own filter, otherwise too much or too little will pop up. This is especially pertinent when tracking down female artists.
The results included a series of articles from 1901-1914 with the title “first woman scenic artist.” “Yeah, right,” I thought. What made the journalist declare her the first and why publish it at that particular point in time?
They all included an interview with the same woman – Grace Wishaar. A search on Wishaar resulted in nothing beyond the exact same articles. Why? She had married multiple times and her maiden name was erased from all written record. Wishaar was no longer part of theatre history.
I admire and appreciate many women who paved the road before me. But there is something to be said when you sense a certain spark that is always present with a truly remarkable individual. What I found especially interesting is that many of the articles reported a scenario where Wishaar simply stumbled across the scenic art field. She was called in to help out an artist and found that she had some talent for the profession. Her story is not that simple. She came from a family with some theatrical interests and was encouraged by her parents – especially her father. As a child, both of her parents recognized the innate talent that both she and her sister possessed. There was not only the support of her family, but an inextinguishable spark that would remain clearly visible throughout the remainder of her life. She had quite a life.
I thought back to the 1882 illustration of two actresses helping a scenic artist paint a scene. It was included in the book “Theatrical and Circus Life; or Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust Arena” (1882).
Sure, I might believe two women who were simply helping and artists prime a backdrop, but Wishaar was a different. She wasn’t a part of a theatre company who was helping out. It was almost as if Wisahar’s story was being minimized by the press to become acceptable for public consumption.
I literally dropped everything else that I was working on and decided to venture down this particular rabbit hole. I was intrigued. Earlier this year, I looked at some of the women who were reported to work as professional scenic artists during the 1920s. A wonderful article had mentioned this group as an ever-increasing presence that included Vyvyan Donner, Nellie Leach, Gladys Calthrop, Lillian Gaestner, and Gretl Urban.
There was no way that these women suddenly popped up out of nowhere and decided to enter the field of scenic art. They had gone through extensive art training and proven themselves multiple times.
My research suggested that by the 1920s there was a growing faction of women in the scenic art community and some seeds of discontent among the men. What I found interesting about the female scenic artists form the 1920s, however, is that none of them really worked as part of a team, or in a studio setting. They would each be responsible for the scenery or decorations, but by themselves. These were the women who had excelled with their own name and possibly were perceived as an ever-increasing threat.
Wishaar was different and I don’t believe that she was an anomaly. Wishaar was one of many who came before her, but there was a reason that her story emerged when it did. The next few installments will look at her entry into the field of scenic art, her work in a studio and her life after theatre. She was really quite something and deserves to be recognized and remembered.
To be continued…
