Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In 1923, the “Olean Evening Herald” reported, “Mabel A. Buell, the only woman scenic artist in New York, claims that scene painting is ideal work for the woman artist, combining aesthetic progress with a large salary as few other artistic professions do” (6 June 1923, page 9).
Today I explore the life of Mabel Buell (1896-1982) as she became a popular subject in 1918 newspapers. As I am covering that year in the life and times of Thomas G. Moses, this seems like an appropriate moment to add a little historical context about female scenic artists. On March 10, 1918, the “Buffalo Times” reported that Mabel Buell was “a noted scenic artist with the Bonstelle Company and has a host of friends in New York” (page 30). The “Buffalo Courier” added that she was “one of the few women scenic artists with the Bonstelle Company at the Star Theatre” (Feb. 17, 1918, page 7). However, Buell’s scenic art career began well before 1918. By 1916, both Buell, and her mother Nina C. Buell were listed as scenic artists in the Sioux City Directory, each working at the Princess Theatre and rooming at the Jackson Hotel. Mabel’s father, Horace H. Buell, was also a well-known scenic artist, but working and living elsewhere at the time. I will explore the entire Buell family in a few days. However, Horace H. Buell passed away in 1919, three year after his son, Horace Jr., who was also a scenic artist.
The story of Mabel’s rise to fame was told to many newspapers over the years. She shaped her introduction to scenic art and training to fit with societal expectations. In 1922 the “Washington Post” reported, “Mabel Buell, still in her early twenties, petite and blond, is the last person one would associate with a big paint brush and scenery, yet this diminutive young woman is the only feminine possessor of a union card in the Scene Painters’ union, and is in fact, the only woman in the United States who is a real scenic artist. Miss Buell’s father was Horace Buell, one of the most famous scenic artists of his time, and as a small child Mabel learned from him the fundamentals of her art, for real art it is. When still a girl in her teens she assisted him when he was engaged in stock, and upon his death she undertook, on her own, to carry on the Buell name in theatrical history. A year ago she was a scenic artist in stock in Detroit with the Jessie Bonstelle stock company and last summer she was with Henry Hull in Dayton. She built and painted scenery for ‘The Squaw Man.’ But she considered her production of ‘Main Street’ one of he best works, for she admits it is not as easy to get all of Main Street, as it was pictured so vividly in the book, on the stage. Any day you may care to you will find her high on the bridge on the stage in the Manhattan opera house where she has her studio, brush in hand, working industriously on some set. Miss Buell is one of the few independent scenic artists who possess their own studios, and the nicest thing about her is that she is delightfully naïve and cannot understand why there is anything unusual for a woman to be in her profession. Her production of ‘Main Street’ has been highly praised for retaining the correct atmosphere of the book” (March 12, 1922, page 3, in “Much on the Job”).
A few years earlier, on Dec. 31, 1919, “The Newark Advocate” featured Buell and mentioned some of her early history (Newark, Ohio, page 9). The article reported, “To be a scenic artist at twenty-one with five years’ experience to one’s credit at an early age is something unusual for anyone, but when the person is a slight little blond girl one simply has to investigate. This is what the investigator finds out about Miss Mable Buell and the unusual career in which she is steadily climbing to fame and fortune. She lives in New York City and has been creating scenery for stock companies and vaudeville teams since she was a slip of a girl, sixteen. She thinks perhaps she inherited her ‘work,’ for her father, Horace Harvev Buell, was well known for his scenic and portrait painting in New York and elsewhere in the country. When in London doing scenery for a theatre there Mr. Buell sent his little daughter to an art school to study. Mabel was but a tiny kiddie then with short skirts and long pig-tails but she studied in the same class with, grown-up professional artists.”
There is an interesting parallel between Mabel and an earlier female scenic artist, Grace A. Wishaar (1876-1956) who also made a splash in the scenic art world during the 1890s. Mabel was born the same year that newspapers began mentioning Grace Wishaar. I explored the life of Wishaar almost three years ago (see past posts 284 to 290), the petite brunette who eventually married world-class chess champion Alexander Alekhine. Wishaar was also born and started out on the West Coast, but began painting in New York at the turn of the twentieth century. The “Buffalo Morning Express” interviewed Wishaar on April 4, 1901 and published an article about her (page 3). Under the heading, “She is a Scenic Artist,” the article reported that Wishaar had recently arrived from Seattle and was working as the scenic artist Frank D. Dodge. After describing her artistic journey, Wishaar was quoted as saying, “They told me at half the theaters in town that a woman couldn’t do it. Any way, I have proved one woman can.” Almost two decades later, Buell had made a similar journey, but she had a head start in a scenic art family. In 1923 when questioned about women in the scenic art field, Buell responded, “For there is, as always will be, a great prejudice against women in this field” (“American Magazine” page 68)
Regardless of either woman’s accomplishments, each was erroneously credited as the only female scenic artist in the country at the time, which was simply not the case, but that title it made headlines. My research confirms that there were many more female scenic artists at the time. The only difference is that they evaded the printed record and were subsequently not included in history books.
By 1918, Mabel was pictured in the “Dayton Herald” on July 11, (page 7). Under her portrait was the caption, “Miss Mabel Buell. This scenic artist of the Brownnell Stork Players at the Lyric, is responsible for a beautiful piece of tapestry which she painted for ‘The Thirteenth Chair,’ this week’s attraction. Miss Brownell will donate this very artistic piece of work to the Red Cross Society next Monday.”
There were also personal interest stories about Buell. The “Dayton Daily News” noted, “Miss Mary Buell, the scenic artist, has a little collie dog, Sheamus, a most loving pet whom she has shaved so closely this summer that he actually thinks that he is a poodle, and wants to climb into your lap” (Dayton, Ohio, 14 July 1918, page 44).
Her Broadway credits for scenic design include “Fifty-Fifty, Ltd.” (Comedy Theatre, Oct. 27, 1919-Nov. 29, 1919), “Plain Jane” (New Amsterdam Theatre, May 12, 1924-Oct. 4, 1924), “Blackberries of 1932” (Liberty Theatre, April 4-23, 1932), “Blackbirds of 1933” (Apollo Theatre, Dec. 2-Dec. 1933), “Summer Wives” (Mansfield Theatre, April 13-18, 1936), “Sea Legs” (Mansfield Theatre, May 18-May 29, 1937), “Straw Hat” (Nora Bayes Theatre, Dec. 30, 1927-Jan. 1938), and “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939” (Hudson Theatre, Feb. 11-18, 1939).
The 1930 census listed Mabel as an artist working, also painting in the interior industry. Her husband was Herbert H J Schulze (b. Oct. 30, 1891), also an artist, and listed as working in the picture industry. Schulze’s WWI draft registration noted that he was working for Gates & Morange in New York in 1917. At the time he filled out the draft registration, Schulze listed that for the past five years he had been under the care of a doctor for heart disease. The couple were married on Feb. 6, 1923 and celebrated the birth of their daughter Joy the next year. He passed away on July 23, 1940. At the time he was still working as a scenic artist for the theater, but lodging at another residence.
On May 6, 1937, “The Brooklyn Daily Eagle” reported “Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr., who retired a year ago as commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, has interrupted his writings on naval matters to become a stage designer. Today he was busily at work in the studio of Miss Mabel A. Buell at 1828 Amsterdam Ave., Manhattan, with whom he has formed a partnership. In the set at which the two are now at work Admiral Stirling’s sea experience is standing him in good stead, for it is set for ‘Sea Legs,’ a musical comedy which opens with Dorothy Stone and depicts the exterior of a stream-lined cabin on the deck of a private yacht. ‘Flesh has been wiped out,’ said the Admiral, discussing the plight of the theatre today.’ All the training of talent is in the night clubs or in the stage shows of a few theaters, the movies have eaten up the seed corn. The harvest better be planted and Hollywood and the films should start up theaters to train talent for the coming dearth’” (page 26). In 1939, Buell provided the illustrations for Yates Stirling’s “Sea Duty: Memoirs of a Fighting Admiral” (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1939). They had a very close relationship.
In 1941, Mabel visited her cousin, Mrs. P. M. Baldwin, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Of her visit, the “Las Cruces Sun-News” reported that Buell was an artist of New York City and collaborator with Admiral Yates Sterling, writer and speaker. The article elaborated, “Miss Buell is a portrait painter and does the frontispieces for Admiral Sterling’s books. Also those pen and ink drawings that head each chapter. She also does scenic painting and often works on stage sets for the largest theatres in New York” (16 Feb. 1941, page 3).
By 1947 and 1948, Mabel was living in west Palm Beach Florida, continuing her work as an artist until her passing. More on Buell tomorrow.
To be continued…
