Anne Poor

Poor grew up with accomplished parents. Her mother, Bessie Breuer, was an American journalist, novelist, and playwright, while her stepfather, Henry Varnum Poor, was a successful artist and architect, most involved in murals and sculptures. A third marriage for both Henry Varnum Poor and Bessie Breuer, Poor was subsequently adopted by Henry, while also having a son of their own named Peter, Poor's only sibling.[2]

While in high school, Anne studied at the Arts Students League with well-known artists such as Alexander Brook, William Zorach, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.[2] During her years of attending Bennington college, she also had the opportunity of studying abroad in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École Fernand Léger as well as working underneath the tutelage of Jean Lurçat and Abraham Rattner.[3]

Once back in the United States, she assisted her father with many mural projects commissioned through New Deal art programs.[4] Assignments included Washington, D.C.'s Department of Justice and Department of Interior buildings, Pennsylvania State University, and the Gleason, Tennessee and Depew, New York post offices.[3]

The 1940s brought new art experiences separate from her father. After a small landscape of hers was accepted in the New York show called "Artists for Victory," Poor wanted to be more directly involved in the war efforts and joined the Women's Army Corps in 1943.[5] Starting as a photo-technician, it was only after much convincing of war department officials that she took an overseas assignment to the Pacific Theater, where it appears most of her time was spent in Manila, Philippines.[2] Poor began an intense period of depicting military life and the evacuations of the wounded for the Air Transport Command.

These military life paintings were later exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[6] Her work continued to be awarded and honored through different exhibitions. At the WAC showroom in Rockefeller Center, New York City, Poor exhibited 33 paintings and drawings of bomber crews in action entitled "Men in Flight."[3]

After the conclusion of the war, she came back home to find her father busy establishing the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he would serve as president, teacher, and trustee. After the schools founding, Anne was invited to lecture about her time as a war artist and later stayed on to become a member of the faculty, a director for 15 years, a member of the Boards, and finally, a trustee.[2] In these positions, Poor quickly earned the respect of both faculty and students as they described her efforts as indispensable.[3]

Besides displaying her work in major museums, Poor published a book of drawings depicting Grecian landscape from her two-year trip traversing the countryside of Greece and Italy. Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, "Henry Miller's Timeless Greece through the Drawings of Anne Poor," From the Archivist's Notebook, August 1, 2015,[7] Accompanying her drawings was text written by Henry Miller based on memories of his own journey in 1939. It appears they made each other's acquaintance in Paris during Poor's study abroad and continued to keep in touch through the years.[7]

The post-war years brought a renewed interest in landscape painting as seen through numerous renderings of the Hudson River and floral still life's. Her later works focused on interior shots of her home in Rockland County, many showcasing her beloved pet cats.[6]

In 1987 Poor was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.[8] Membership to this academy is limited to 250 Americans who have made notable achievements in art, literature, and music. Although members rotate in and out with their subsequent passing, past members are continually remembered and kept alive through their records.[8] Poor's final show took place in 2001, a year before her passing, at the Edward Hopper House Art Center in Nyack, New York.[6]

Poor's work is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum[9] and the Whitney Museum of American Art.[10]

The time of Poor's mural creations overlapped with her studies at the Art Students League, the Académie Julian, and the École Fernand Léger. It was in these institutions that she was taught classical art techniques and the works of the masters. It appears that Poor used these studies in her ongoing work as seen in the Depew mural— figures clustered in small, carefully balanced groups mimic the work of Piero della Francesca.[3] This blending of knowledge with new subjects continued in her renderings of Pacific air evacuations. As scholar Sylvia Moore points out, the study Restraining Psychotic at Holding Station, completed in a Guam station, resembles a scene from a classical crucifixion cycle.[3]

In consideration of Poor's choice of materials, her life work was rendered through pastels, ink, watercolor, and oil.[6] However, while serving in the army abroad, it appears Poor opted for ink and pencil sketches and pastel images. These materials were easily transported and quick to use. Working in the fast-paced environment of military stations, Poor had little time to depict these fleeting moments; therefore, her works contain fine and sketchy lines with simplified backgrounds. The example of Green Figure in Hull, completed in oil on masonite board, perhaps shows an infrequent moment of rest, thus allowing her to work with a slow-drying material. The compositions of men and planes also highlight her ability to merge human figures with the machines they control.

After the war years, Poor returned to creating landscapes, starting with a trip across Greece and Italy, in which her sketches later turned into a book titled Greece with text by Henry Miller.[18] He describes her work as one that conveys "intimate, first-hand knowledge of her subject" and showcases her exact and simple use of lines.[3]

Poor's landscapes shifted from her travels to familiar scenes from her home in Rockland County and New York in general.[3] One seemingly favorite subject matter included the Hudson River.[6] In further explanation of these works, Poor quotes, "I'm not really interested in realistic particulars of a scene... I'm trying to get a sense of big spaces and a larger whole."[6] During the last years of her life, Poor's artwork turned more inward and intimate as it described her day-to-day routine; paintings filled with pet cats and floral bouquets. Although perhaps not deemed as exciting compared to her work in the 40s, Poor delicately renders her environment with both a sense of interest, acceptance, and honor.

In all of the publications that mention Anne Poor's name, only high compliments are paid regarding her work. For starters, Henry Miller raved about her sketches as his only incentive to write more regarding his travels to Greece.[18] He is also quoted as if mystified by her talents.

I come back to the drawings again and again, to marvel over their simplicity and exactitude. What intrigues one is their suggestive quality. What has been left out— with purpose, to be sure— remains like some mysterious X quantity, or effluvium rather. Ambiance is all.[18]

Critic Edward Alden Jewell of the New York Times also reviewed her one-person show, "Men in Flight," at the American-British Art Center, saying "she sees with her own eyes and thinks for herself... Anne Poor is still very young and already she has accomplished a great deal."[3] Yet again, for the same show, the praise only continued.

Artist Poor's quick impressions convey an intimate first-hand knowledge of her subject...behind all this young artists work one senses alertness, keen observation and growth.[3]

At the same center in 1946, Poor showed wartime wash and ink drawings such as Blood Transfusion, undated and Walking Wounded, undated.[5] An unknown New York Times reviewer labeled the work as "powerful and moving studies."[3]

After the war, Poor experienced an intensified interest in landscapes and still-life's and, regardless of the missing action compared to her wartime work, received great acclaim. Alan Gussow, an artist and author, expressed that one experiences "whole worlds of feeling revealed in simple flowers" in her work.[3]

Arguably one of the most significant awards bestowed on Poor was the induction as a distinguished artist to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In an article describing this event, Michael Hitzig quoted Gertrude Dahlberg, widow of Edwin Dahlberg— a great painter also hailing from Rockland— saying "Since the death of Edward Hopper in 1966, the only nationally renowned painter whose earliest roots are in Rockland is Anne Poor."[8]

Hitzig did not hold back when offering his own compliments:

If she is not exactly an "immortal," like one of those French Immortals who comprise the Académie française, Anne Poor of New York City, had come within bailing distance of that exalted appellation...[8]

• American Women Artists in Wartime, 1776-2010

• Post Office Mural in Gleason, Tennessee
• Post Office Mural in Depew, New York