Oral history interview with Marcella Comès (Winslow)
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 17 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Winslow, Marcella Comès
label: Interviewer
content: Pennington, Estill Curtis
topic: label: Occupation
content: Portrait painters -- Washington (D.C.)
label: Occupation
content: Photographers -- Washington (D.C.)
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women painters
label: Topic
content: Women photographers
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Winslow, Marcella Comès
label: Interviewer
content: Pennington, Estill Curtis
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Marcella Comès (Winslow) (1905-2000) was a portrait painter, photographer of Washington, D.C. Known also as Marcella Comès and Marcella Rodange Comès.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 28 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1982 May 4
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.winslo82
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview with Marcella Comès (Winslow) conducted 1982 May 4, by Estill Curtis (Buck) Pennington, for the Archives of American Art, at Winslow's home in Washington, D.C.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Winslow speaks of her art training at the Carnegie School of Fine Arts and in Europe; her first portrait commission; her first exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Pa.; her marriage to William Randolph Winslow and their relocation to Washington, D.C.; the Corcoran Gallery, the Phillips Gallery and the arts community in Washington, D.C., and exhibitions available in the 1940s and 1950s; the many Southern writers she painted and the Southern literary renaissance; her studio in Georgetown and how she came to live and work there and in New Hampshire; painting people realistically, and their reactions to that realism as they get older; her work with Artists' Equity in Washington, D.C.; exhibiting in local galleries; the Whyte Gallery, the Obelisk, and the Bader Gallery, the Henri Gallery, and Jefferson Place; changing styles to cubism and abstraction from realism, and how cultural mood dictates artistic styles; her various interests outside of painting, including her garden, her grandchildren, and her house; and the changes in Washington, D.C., and Georgetown in particular, over the years that she has lived there. Ms. Winslow speaks in great detail about the people whose portraits she painted, including: Monsignor Francis Spellman; her mother-in-law, writer Anne Goodwin Winslow; Allen Tate, who introduced her to many of the writers she subsequently painted; Tate's wife Caroline Gordon; John Crowe Ransom; John Peale Bishop; Robert Penn Warren; Katherine Anne Porter; Ezra Pound; Robert Lowell; Eudora Welty; Karl Shapiro; Leonie Adams; Elizabeth Bishop; Mark van Doren; Denis Devlin; Juan Ramon Jimenez; Katherine Chapin Biddle; Robert Frost; Richard Eberhart; Joanna Sturm; and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Ms. Winslow also recalls Homer Saint-Gaudens, Robert Franklin (Bob) Gates, Margaret Casey Gates, William (Bill) Calfee, Sarah Baker, Bernice Cross, Mitchell Jamieson, Herman Williams, Bill Walton, and others.