During Alexandre Hogue’s career as an artist, Hogue taught year-round as a professor of art at various schools in Texas and later Oklahoma. Based on Hogue’s teaching schedule and accomplishments, it is unlikely he had the time to travel and sketch his landscapes on-site. It is a possibility Hogue painted from photographs or films to create his Dust Bowl paintings. These photographs and films could have been a great assistance to Hogue and would have allowed him to paint the Dust Bowl while devoting his time to teaching throughout the year. In 1932, Alexandre Hogue began teaching classes at Texas State College for Women in Denton, Texas. In the summers Hogue traveled with his students to Taos, New Mexico to teach a field study class on painting. During the winters, Hogue taught an extension class for the school in Dallas, Texas. In addition, Hogue was made head of the Art Department at Hockaday Junior College in Dallas in 1936. Hogue taught at Hockaday during the spring and fall semesters and continued to teach at Texas State College for Women in the winter and summer in Dallas and Taos. In 1942, Hogue took a break from teaching and was granted a leave of absence to begin working for North American Aviation as a technical illustrator during WWII. Hogue continued his teaching career after the war in 1945 and began teaching at the University of Tulsa as head of the art department where he taught for 22 years until his retirement. Letters in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art help to prove Hogue’s overcommitted teaching schedule in the late 1930’s through the early 1960’s. In 1937, Hogue listed his biographical information and accomplishments on his application for the Guggenheim Fellowship of 1938 (Figure 1). In the application Hogue wrote, “these teaching activities have occupied a large part of my time. I feel hampered because of the necessity to divide attention between painting and teaching, leaving no free time for field trips and painting necessary to carry on this project.” Hogue applied for the Guggenheim Fellowship three times throughout the late 1930’s without success. His busy teaching schedule was not allowing him the time to paint and he hoped the fellowship might give him the time to travel and work as a full-time artist. Figure 1. Alexandre Hogue, Application for the Guggenheim Fellowship 1938, October 15, 1937. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1480. On February 25, 1938, Hogue wrote to Saint Gaudens concerning his painting Mother Earth Laid Bare for the Carnegie Institute (Figure 2). Hogue explained, “this painting depends much on the time I can get. I am tied down by teaching and other obligations which take up most of my time and then I am a slow painter.” Hogue was teaching full time during the completion of Mother Earth Laid Bare; and because of this, it would have been difficult for him to travel to areas of the drought to paint or make sketches during the semester. Figure 2. Alexandre Hogue, letter from Alexandre Hogue to Saint Gaudens, February 25, 1938. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1480. In a letter to Rowder on November 15, 1939, Hogue declined an invitation to paint a mural for the Parcel Post Building in Houston, Texas (Figure 3). Hogue wrote, “it may be best for me to give up the Houston project before any money has been paid to me. Had I won a large commission, I would have resigned my teaching and devoted all of my time to the project. However, my obligations are too heavy to permit of such rash action in regards to the smaller jobs.” Figure 3. Alexandre Hogue, letter from Alexandre Hogue to Mr. Rowder, November 15, 1939. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1480. In a letter to Saint Gaudens on May 8, 1946, Hogue updated Saint Gaudens on his life living in Tulsa, Oklahoma after the war (Figure 4). Hogue wrote, “I resigned my place as head of the art department of Hockaday Junior College, and went with North American Aviation, as technical illustrator, where I stayed for three years until the end of the war. In this time, I did no paintings with the exception of the Encyclopedia Britannica assignment, for the production of which they gave me a five week leave of absence. The year in Tulsa has allowed no further time, but since I am on a nine-month contract with the university, I will have the summer for intensive painting.” According to this letter, Hogue did not have the time to devote himself to painting since 1942 due to his job as a technical illustrator and later as a professor at the University of Tulsa. Figure 4. Alexandre Hogue, letter from Alexandre Hogue to Saint Gaudens, May 8, 1946. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1481. In a letter from Frank Dobie to Hogue on December 26, 1949, Dobie wrote, “you must manage some way to paint. It would likely kill you not to and the country needs your art" (Figure 5). This letter suggested Hogue’s job as a professor in Tulsa still had not allowed him enough time to paint. Figure 5. Alexandre Hogue, letter from Frank Dobie to Alexandre Hogue, December 26 1949. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1480. On November 26, 1978, an article in OK Magazine explained Hogue’s painting process (Figure 6). Hogue claimed he painted from sketches after trips out west and would paint through the night, between 11:00 p.m. and dawn “when he can hear the coyotes and the hoot owls.” He claimed these sketches from out west were “precursors of those paintings that make him internationally known in the 1930’s as the 'Dust Bowl Painter.'” The article went on to explain Hogue’s resentment “being typecast as a 'Dust Bowl Painter' since only a few of his paintings deal with that subject” and how he believed his Dust Bowl paintings pigeon holed him. Figure 6. “A Portrait of the Artist: Oklahoma’s Illustrious Alexandre Hogue,” OK Magazine, November 26, 1978. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Reel No. 1482. In this article, Hogue admitted he did not paint from real life but instead used sketches for his Dust Bowl paintings. However, due to Hogue’s busy teaching schedule beginning in 1932, he most likely would not have had the time to travel out to the Dust Bowl region to make these sketches for his all of his paintings either. There is also no evidence in letters of Hogue spending time near the Dust Bowl region. All of his letters in the Smithsonian Archives were addressed to and sent from Denton, Dallas, and occasionally Taos locations during the 1930’s. Instead of the use of sketches, it is a possibility Hogue painted from film clips by journalists traveling to the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. Hogue could have drawn inspiration from films made by the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee, a group of journalists employed by the federal government to make films during the Dust Bowl. These films by the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee were used to document the Dust Bowl and projects from President Roosevelt’s New Deal. The films included landscape footage of the drought and helped to reveal the devastation of the Dust Bowl to those not living in the area. The variety of landscapes and architecture in films of the Dust Bowl by the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee and other groups of journalists could have given Hogue everything he needed to paint the Dust Bowl without the need for traveling or sketches. In our blog post on Mother Earth Laid Bare, we addressed the copyright accusation against Hogue in 1939. A scene from the film The River contained a frame similar to Hogue’s Mother Earth Laid (Figure 7). The film was released on February 4, 1938 when Hogue states he was in the process of working on his painting. Hogue would not complete the painting until the summer after the film's release. Figure 7. Film still from The River. Directed by Pare Lorentz. February 4, 1938 Details from these film stills below of the fences in the Dust Bowl region and the sunlight though the dust storms are similar to the details in Hogue’s Wind Erosion (Figure 8 and 9). Hogue did not directly copy these film stills but instead took pieces of details from multiple stills and used his imagination to place them together to create a single painting. Figure 8. Film still reproduced in PBS Documentary The Dust Bowl. Directed by Ken Burns. PBS. November 18, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guTek7ipD4U Figure 9. Film still from the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee Accomplishments Movie. Kansas Emergency Relief Committee. 1934. https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/204928 Historical photographs of the Dust Bowl, such as the photograph below, could have aided Hogue in painting the architecture and details in many of his paintings such as Drouth Stricken Area (Figure 10). Figure 10. Historical photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt. LIFE Magazine. https://www.aldoleopold.org/. This film still of a decaying cow from another film made by journalists traveling to the area could have been used for Hogue’s Drought Survivors (Figure 11). Figure 11. Film still reproduced in Stinging Dust and Forgotten Lives: The Dust Bowl, by Cameron Douglas Craig. Eastern Illinois University. 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i768Fbtw9Y. The recently rediscovered Erosion series painting Jacks (1934/35) was most likely painted through the use of films and photographs as well (Figure 12 and 13). In the film stills below, details from jackrabbit drives during the Dust Bowl can be seen. In a clip reproduced in the historical documentary Surviving the Dust Bowl, an opening in a fence is captured where the jackrabbits were driven in and killed (Figure 12). In a home movie created by Dr. F. H. Kenagy in 1931, he captures piles of jackrabbits after a jackrabbit drive in Rupert, Idaho (Figure 13). Through the use of films such as these, Hogue would have been able to understand the process of the jackrabbit drives and paint the devastating aftermath without having to travel to one himself. Jacks was first exhibited at the Alice Street Carnival in Dallas, Texas in June 1935, at the same time Hogue’s Wind Erosion was exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. In our next blog post, we will be further examining this recently rediscovered Erosion series painting by Hogue. Figure 12. Film Still reproduced in PBS Documentary Surviving the Dust Bowl. Directed by Chana Gazit. PBS. March 2, 1998. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/dustbowl/ Figure 13. Film still from home movie Rabbit Drive Near Rupert. Directed by Dr. F H Kenagy. 1931. Due to Hogue’s busy teaching schedule in the 1930’s, these films and photographs of the Dust Bowl could have been a great assistance to him in creating his Dust Bowl paintings. Hogue was deeply concerned about the environment but he did not have the time to travel out to the Dust Bowl and devote himself to painting. Access to these films and photographs would have allowed him start painting the Dust Bowl right away and continue to devote his time to teaching throughout the year. Using these films and his imagination, Hogue could have created his convincing paintings of the devastation of the Dust Bowl as if he was there.
Russell Tether, President Katherine Hillman, Associate Russell Tether Fine Arts Associates, LLC |