WPA Art Inventory Project

Robert Garrett Thew (aka R. Garrett Thew or Garrett Thew) was born in Sharon, Connecticut in 1892.  He was a painter and sculptor. He attended Syracuse University and the New York City Art Students League and studied under Edward Penfield, Walter Briggs, and John Carlson. Thew was associated with the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency and produced designs for New England businesses, including General Electric. For the Connecticut WPA Federal Arts Project, he completed eight plaques around the theme “History of Writing.” He lived in Westport, Connecticut and started the Garrett-Thew Studios. Thew died in 1964 in Westport.

Sources:  Artist’s Work Card; Obituary, New York Times, March 3, 1964; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 618;Dictionary of American Painters and Sculptors (1986), p. 930.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Robert Thew:

Lars Thorsen was born in Norway on November 20, 1876. He worked various maritime jobs throughout his life including mess-boy, sail-maker, rigger, and Grand Banks fisherman. He had no formal art training but taught himself to paint while at sea. He became famous for his marine paintings and won the Bunce Prize from the Connecticut of Academy of Fine Arts in 1937. Thorsen was a member of the Mystic Art Colony and lived in Noank, Connecticut. He began work for the WPA Federal Arts Project in 1939, completing 81 works many of which were allocated to the Rocky Hill Soldiers’ Home, Undercliff Sanatorium, Fairfield State Hospital, Mystic Oral School, Washington School, Connecticut State Farm for Women, Borough School, Connecticut National Guard Aviation Hangar, and Fort Wright on Fisher’s Island, New York. Thorsen died in New London, Connecticut in 1952.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who In American Art (1985), p. 623; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), 937; East Side Area Antiques, Lars Thorsen, pp. 9-10 of 12; Photo Standalone 25, Hartford Courant, June 6, 1926; “Sea’s Spirit Is Captured By Thorsen,” Hartford Courant, March 17, 1927; “Mystic Museum to Show Work of Lars Thorsen,” Hartford Courant, April 17, 1945; Donald Smith, “New Mecca for Connecticut’s Artists [Noank],” Hartford Courant, August 3, 1947.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Lars Thorsen:

Francis Thwing was born on the July 27, 1884. He painted three murals for the WPA Federal Arts Project at the Newington Home for Crippled Children, the Children’s Village, and Kinsella School in Hartford. Thwing died in May of 1967 in Maine.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; Social Security and Death Index; “Mural to Hang at Newington Home for Crippled Children,” Hartford, Courant, September 16, 1937.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Francis Thwing:

Archie Tillinghast was born on June 8, 1909, in Stonington, Connecticut. He attended primary school in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey before graduating from the East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey. From 1929 until 1931 he studied art at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. Tillinghast’s work was exhibited at the Mystic Art Gallery, Montclair Museum, Newark Art Club, Newark Museum and Opportunity Gallery, and in New York. During the WPA Federal Arts Project he completed 89 easel works which were allocated to Norwich State Hospital, Southbury Training School, Samuel Staples School, Undercliff Sanatorium, Long Lane Farm, Fort Wright, Rocky Hill Soldiers’ Home, and Fairfield State Hospital. Later he worked as a mold maker at Monsanto Co. in Stonington, Connecticut where he served as a union officer. Tillinghast also founded the Wequetequack Fire Department. He died in Norwich, Connecticut in 1988.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 624; Social Security Death Index; “Connecticut to Celebrate National Art Week,” Hartford Courant, November 17, 1940; Obituary, New London Day, September 27, 1988.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Archie Tillinghast:

A. J. Tock completed one known work for the WPA Federal Arts Project. Nothing else is known about him.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from A. Tock:

Henry Tomlinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 18, 1875. He attended local public schools and Baltimore City College. He also took drawing courses at night, and in 1895 he received the Peabody Prize at the Maryland Institute of Art. When Tomlinson was 21 he moved to New York where he studied art for a year with the Art Students League and then took a pack trip out west where he worked on ranches, in gold mines, and in smelting plants. When he returned to New York he wed Maude Cooley, and they had one daughter. For several years Tomlinson earned his living acting small parts in Broadway plays. After silent movies appeared he played in early high collar tragedies and pie throwing comedies. His acting career ended when he became deaf. He was primarily a self-taught artist whose medium was oil and whose subjects were landscapes. In 1920 Tomlinson moved to Salisbury, Connecticut where he built a cottage for his family. Doctors later informed him that he had weakened his heart through the strain of the labor. He began working for the WPA Federal Arts Project in 1935 and completed 87 easel works and three murals. They were allocated to Fairfield State Hospital, Greenwood School in Winsted, Laurel Heights Sanatorium, Long Lane Farm, Fort Wright on Fisher’s Island, Salisbury High School, Norwalk High School, Danbury State Normal School, Connecticut School for Boys, McKinley School in Bridgeport, State Teachers College in New Haven, and the Winsted School Board. Tomlinson loved the desert Southwest and died while visiting New Mexico in 1949.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; New York Times, January 31, 1949; Obituary, Lakeville Journal, February 3, 1949; AskART; Who’s Who In American Art (1985), p. 626; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), p. 943.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Henry Tomlinson:

Harry Townsend was born in 1879 on a farm in Wyoming, Illinois. Early in life he earned a living working with a sign painter. He completed high school and went to the University of Wisconsin. He was interested in art and transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied painting under Frederick Freer and Frank Duveneck and sculpting under Lorado Taft. During the summers Townsend serviced harvesters and binders in central Illinois for the McCormick Harvester Company. He also traveled to the Southwest and painted while living among the Native Americans. Both the Santa Fe and Rock Island Railroads used his art for advertising. In 1900 Townsend was invited to study painting under Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware, which he did for four years. Next, he entered the National Academy of Design in New York to study sculpting under Herman McNeil. Townsend then went to Paris and London. In 1904 he returned to Chicago, taught at the Academy of Fines Arts, and married an art student. On returning to New York, he taught at the Art Students League. He moved to New Jersey and by 1910 was a successful illustrator whose creations appeared in Harper’s, Century, Everybody’s, McClure’s and several books. Townsend also studied etching, lithography, and woodcuts. In 1912 he returned to Europe with his family to set up a studio in northern France, but in 1914 he came back to the U.S. after war began. Once again, he worked as an illustrator.

During the early years of the war Townsend created war posters. In 1917, at the age of 39, he was commissioned as a Captain in the Engineering Corp and was in France by May 1918. He was one of eight official combat artists for the American Expeditionary Forces. War machines were his specialty, and he painted airplanes and the First Aero Pursuit Group of the U. S. Air Service. According to one historian, “Townsend’s work during the war focuses on the human element.”

“He produced a number of images showing how the rigors of combat eventually leave little to distinguish between winners and losers in war.”

His combat art is in the Smithsonian. His diary was published in 1991 as War Diary of a Combat Artist.

In 1921 the Townsends moved to Connecticut and settled in Norwalk, where he would live for the rest of his life. He worked for the WPA Federal Arts Project from 1935 to 1941 and produced 87 pieces of art including two murals. One was the First Settlers in Norwalk for the Benjamin Franklin Junior High School and another was the Purchase of Norwalk in the city hall council chambers. He also painted the first female game warden in the nation, Edith Stoehr of Wethersfield.

Of Townsend’s art, his WPA biography read that, though he had painted landscapes, he preferred “to paint in the figure.”  “All of his work has a decorative quality,” it continued.  “His is a clear, conservative style of great freshness and spontaneity.”

Townsend was a member of the Association of Connecticut Artists, the Silvermine Guild of Artists, the Westport Artist Market, the Architectural League of America, the Salmagundi Club of New York, the Society of Illustrators, the Allied Artists of America, the Society of American Etchers, and the Artists Guild of the Authors League of America. Townsend died in Norwalk in 1941.

Sources:  WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 628; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), p. 945; “Harry Everett Townsend (1879-1941)”; Self Portrait by Harry Everett Townsend; Walter Kudlick, U. S. Army Official War Artists. National Museum of American History

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Harry Townsend:

Grace Treadwell was born in 1893 in West Chop, Massachusetts. She studied art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Students’ League in New York, and the Grand Chaumiere in Paris. She was a member of the Pen and Brush Club of New York City and the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA). She served as president of the latter from 1946-1949. The years that she worked for the Federal Arts Project are unknown as is the art produced. The Connecticut State Library owns one of her WPA paintings.

In 1947, as president of NAWA, Treadwell was involved in a cause celeb involving an “indecent” sculpture. Just before the NAWA exhibition was to open at the National Academy of Design in New York, Treadwell announced that she had ordered the prize winning aluminum sculpture, Lovers, removed from the exhibit. She gave as her reason that the director of the Academy had heard complaints that the work was “indecent.” Treadwell further justified her action by saying that she had removed one piece in order to prevent the Academy from closing the exhibit. Of course, members of the Association came to the aid of the sculptor, Mitzi Solomon (later Mitzi Solomon Cunliffe). Solomon herself resigned and others followed. Treadwell had to defend her actions before a meeting of NAWA. The director of the Academy issued a statement disavowing any attempt by his organization to censor the exhibit. Eventually all agreed that the sculpture should be returned, Solomon and the others rejoined NAWA, and Treadwell stayed on until the end of her term in 1949. Treadwell died in 1989.

Sources: Who Was Who in American Art [1985], p. 629; Social Security Death Index; New York Times: Howard Devree, A Gallery-Goer’s Week,” May 7, 1933; “In the New York Area,” September 22, 1935; “Show in Brooklyn of Humor in Art,” November 22, 1935; “Art Exhibit Opens Today,” November 15, 1942; “Art by Palencia To Be Displayed,” March 30, 1944; “53^rd Show Opened by Women Artists,” April 24, 1945; “Pen and Brush Winners,” January 7, 1946; “Allenbrook Painting Will Be Shown Here,” March 15, 1946; Sanka Knox,  “Lovers, Prize Winning Sculpture, Barred From Academy Art Show,” April 26, 1947; “3D Sculptor Quits Over Banned Work,” April 28, 1947; “Ban on Sculpture Comes Up Tonight,” April 30, 1947; “Women Artists End LoversStatue Row,” May 1, 1947; Edward Alden Jewell, “Art and Censorship,” May 4, 1947; “Unloved Lovers,” Time Magazine, May 5, 1947, “17 Art Prizes Given,” September 27, 1949; “263 Works of Art Seen in Exhibition,” November 11, 1950; “Women Show Art in Many Mediums,” January 31, 1953; “Variety of Styles and Displays at Galleries,” March 11, 1956; “Abbott Treadwell Jr.,” November 25, 1960.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Grace Treadwell: