Art exhibit has historical roots
Deceased local artist Daura
studied under Picasso's father
By KILTIE TOMPKINS
Martha Daura is retired now, but cataloguing hundreds of her father's artistic works has become a full-time job for the former Rockbridge County resident.
Paintings and watercolors by the world-class but relatively unknown artist Pierre Daura are currently on display in Washington & Lee University's Staniar Gallery, through the end of March.
Photo by Mary Childs
Martha and her husband, Thomas Mapp, a former W&L Law School professor, have spent the past several years trying to make a record of the several thousand paintings, watercolors, and sculptures that her father sold and gave away to friends and neighbors in Rockbridge County, Lynchburg, and the medieval French town of St. Cirq-Lapopie.
"This is an ongoing project," Martha Daura said. She said that some 300 works have been catalogued so far, many of which came from private collections. She has also made record of the "huge collection" that she inherited from her father.
Pierre was a Spanish-born painter who studied under Picasso's father. He was a founding member of Cercle et Carré, a group of elite artists in Paris that included Piet Mondrian and Vasily Kandinsky. But a sequence of political events forced Daura off the elite art scene, and he eventually took refuge in Rockbridge Baths near the family of his wife, Louise Blair. The Dauras spent many of the last years of Pierre's life there until his death in 1976.
"If you ask 1,000 people, 999 wouldn't know who he was," said Bill Rasmussen, curator for the Virginia Historical Society, where the exhibit now at W&L was previously showcased. "Yet he was a world-class artist."
Visiting Louise's family in Rockbridge Baths just before the outbreak of World War II, the Dauras decided to wait out the war in Virginia. Inspired by the beauty of Virginia and of his French cottage in St. Cirq, he painted some 3,000 works in the last three decades of his life. He sold some, but also gave many away to friends and neighbors in Lexington and Lynchburg.
"One of the best ways to measure a great artist is by the quantity of great work," Rasmussen said. "He just turned them out, and they were all good. He was just that gifted."
Without an art dealer to promote his name or works, Daura disappeared from the major art scene. But his passion for painting continued right up until his death, Martha said. Although she was off at school for much of her father's painting career, she did take care of him for the last three or four years of his life.
"He painted all the time. It was like breathing for him," she said.
An exhibit three times the size of the one currently at W&L was at the Virginia Historical Society from mid-September to mid-January before moving to the campus on Feb. 12. The exhibit will stay here until March 31. Professor Pam Simpson and Dinah Ryan, gallery director of W&L's Wilson Hall, had to decide which works not to include due to space constraints.
Director of University Collections Peter Grover said Rasmussen, a W&L alumnus, tipped him off to the Daura show a few years back, at which point the idea for the exhibit was still being organized. The art department and the Reeves Center, where University Collections is housed, split the $10,000 bill to get the exhibit to campus, Grover said.
Staniar Gallery, in Wilson Hall, is not the only place where W&L showcases Daura's work. Kamen Gallery in the Lenfest Center also has some Daura works. Last Fall Martha Daura gave W&L about 15 of paintings, and on Feb. 15 Grover said he picked up 12 more.
"W&L was always very supportive, and my father always felt very close to [the University]," Martha said. Mapp added that Daura "was part of the Lexington community."
Martha and Mapp, who now live in Athens, Ga., said they have given away Daura's works to 35 museums in the United States and to 10 in France and Spain. Both W&L and the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington own several paintings and watercolors, and Lynchburg College, where Daura taught during his time in Virginia, has a Pierre Daura Gallery.
"He was the best artist in Virginia in the twentieth century," Rasmussen said.
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Claudette Artwick
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd