May 2024

A woman who feels a mysterious connection to New Orleans discovers that in the Roaring Twenties, her grandfather was a celebrated artist, art teacher – and notable French Quarter personality.

– by Catherine Whitney

The Discovery

In the spring of 1990, I attended a conference in New Orleans.  My hotel room wasn’t ready when I arrived, so I stored my luggage and went for a stroll, inadvertently ending up in the French Quarter.

I was stunned by the other-worldly atmosphere. And as has happened to many before me, the enchantment was instant. I also had a sense of connection for which I had no explanation – at the time.  

After this initial trip, I often visited New Orleans. Soon, my time there triggered the memory that my grandparents had been married in the city and my father was born there as well. Although the history of my grandfather was vague, I knew that after only a few years, the 1925 marriage was annulled (my grandmother was a devout Catholic, so divorce wasn’t in keeping with the church mandates).

Although originally from Mobile, in 1929, my grandmother, Catherine, and my father relocated to New York City, where my great-grandfather had an apartment for business purposes.

I knew my late grandmother well – and am her namesake – but had never met my grandfather, Daniel Whitney. I further remembered that he had been an artist.  In my childhood home hung a portrait he had painted of my grandmother, “Catherine.”

By chance, or perhaps by divine path, one of the places I fell into while “floating” in the French Quarter on one of my visits was The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) located at 533 Royal Street. There, I learned that THNOC had a research center just a few blocks away on Chartres Street.

It occurred to me that perhaps the Williams Research Center would have some information about my grandfather, Dan.  To my surprise, the center had a full file of information about him.

When I opened it, the first page was a copy of an article published by the Times-Picayune in February of 1925, including a photo of Catherine’s portrait.

The headline read: 

Vieux Carre is Startled by Paint-Box Romance. 

It isn’t often that old Frenchtown is shaken out of its dusty serenity, but it was, and shaken hard too, when news filtered through the studios yesterday that Daniel Whitney, New Orleans painter, and Miss Catherine Wainwright, his lovely young pupil, had been married. 

Miss Wainwright joined Mr. Whitney’s class at the Arts and Crafts Club. Later, he asked her to pose for him in a study he wanted to paint and she consented. That started things.The portrait wasn’t finished until Friday.

Whitney wanted to enter it in the annual exhibition of the Art Association of New Orleans, which opens at the Delgado on March 1, entries for which closed February 13. He had made some alterations in the composition and all Friday afternoon he worked. A friend’s car was commandeered. Still wet the painting was rushed out to the Delgado and arrived just as the doors were closing. 

It was a watershed moment in my life. Reading the rest of the file, I became intensely curious about how my family’s history factored into the mystery and magic of New Orleans that I was experiencing.

I reported this discovery to my siblings and my then-10-year-old niece, Julia, who quickly found news on the internet about an upcoming exhibition that included Dan’s art: “The New Orleans Arts & Crafts Club: An Artistic Legacy.”

The 2006 exhibit was a collaboration of THNOC and the New Orleans Museum of Art, curated by Judith Bonner. My family and I attended the exhibition, which fanned my initial spark of intrigue into a flame.

After the exhibition, I became a member of THNOC and as a frequent visitor to New Orleans, began participating in more of their programs and events. This opened up a “path” of fascination as I continued to research my grandfather.  Each door that opened led to another, revealing a unique richness of personalities that rendered me in a state of awe.

In 2009, at another THNOC exhibition, I met the painter John Clemmer, the last Director of the Arts & Crafts Club. I visited John at his studio and told him about my interest in learning more about Dan.  He, in turn, referred me to Garic “Nikki” Barranger.  John and his wife used to attend brunches at Nikki’s parents’ home, “Red Bluffs,” in Covington.

I wrote Nikki a letter asking if I could have a dialogue with him about Dan and he responded:

It seems that Providence is smiling on your quest for the ghost of your late grandfather, my parents were friends with Dan and I can provide you with information. 

Piecing together information from both John and Nikki, I eventually connected with the late Jimmie de Buys, the nephew of Dan’s second wife, Betsy Fox. Jimmie lived in a Covington, Louisiana house, where Dan and Betsy had spent the final decades of their lives (Dan died in 1965 and Betsy remained there alone, with the help of Jimmie until she passed in the 1990s).

All three of these men were gracious, kind, and highly interesting people who I began to form relationships with. I became friends with John and his wife Dottie and gained an appreciation for John’s artistic talent and purchased two of his paintings. Nikki and I maintained a correspondence for many years and occasionally we would visit together.  Jimmie and I formed a familial bond and I met more people through our friendship.

I first spoke with Jimmie on the phone. He told me some things about his life and offered an opportunity to visit with him. A few times in the past, I had driven around Covington exploring, hoping to somehow come across the Whitney residence.  All I knew was that it was near the Little Bogue Falaya River. Now I had an actual invitation.

Jimmie’s directions ended with “stay on Highway 1081 and .7 miles north you’ll see two banged up mailboxes on the left. Take the dirt driveway across the road over the bridge, straight past the first house and you’ll end up at Le Bogue, where you’ll be most welcomed by me!”

I brought a few bottles of wine, a case of beer, and take-out food from the Napoleon House.

It was an overcast afternoon it was in February of 2008 when I entered the Bogue. I got out of the car and stood surveying the area.  Jimmie came up behind me and gave me a long hug. No words were spoken for several minutes.

We moved into the great room of Dan and Betsy’s old house and sat by the fire.  We talked for about ten hours.  Around midnight, I told Jimmie I needed to get back to the Hotel Monteleone and he didn’t want me to leave. Through the years and many visits together, he never wanted our time together to end.

Jimmie joined my adventure of discovering Dan in full force. We had lots of fun at “the Bogue.” Part of the house had been damaged by Katrina, but some of the remaining house was still intact and things were neatly arranged such as glasses and dishes in the kitchen cupboard dating back to when Betsy resided there. Time seemed suspended at the Bogue.

Dan had a studio in a separate building near the house with an easel standing and tubes of paint scattered around it. It felt as though the artist may return at any moment. Betsy had never touched it, leaving it as it was when he’d painted for the last time.

There were paintings in a storage area of the studio and hanging in the house. And there were many papers that Dan typed and information Betsy had collected about him.  In addition to these tangible remnants, there was an intangible sense of the energy that lingered from Dan and Betsy.

Jimmie and I would often wine and dine in a screen-covered room off of the kitchen and near the Bogue Falaya.  A typical meal consisted of take-out from a local seafood store of a softly sautéed piece of trout and potato salad with a dry white wine.  And more wine.

We’d walk around the property through paths that Jimmie had cut out in the mostly wooded acres surrounding the house. Hours would pass but the passage of time was almost not quantifiable except for the changing sky and light.

Through the combination of all of these sources mentioned and more, I  began to piece together the parts of Dan’s life.

Early History

Among Dan’s papers at the Bogue was a note that read:

Sometimes it seems quite necessary to put into print my thoughts. Not that what I am thinking is of any importance, or is even worth writing about, but because it tends lessen the tensions built up within me. I hope this doesn’t sound too obscure.

When I was very young, I was considered a delicate child. I can remember fainting and passing out cold several times. Once while getting a haircut and again when my brother, who had been knocked down by a horse, ran to the house with blood streaming from his chin, I fainted and fell twenty or more steps down a stairway.

My mother dosed me with bitter-tasting medicines. And I recall drinking water from a wooden cup, which made anything it contained extremely bitter.  I was told over and over again that I was too nervous for my own good.

There were many things I could not eat, due to a repulsion that came over me whenever I saw certain foods. Quite often I had to leave the room lest I vomit there and then. My particular dislikes were many. Raw meats, fish with their heads on, brains, kidneys, hearts, shrimp, rhubarb and squash.

There were other dislikes, like being forced to kiss visiting aunts and cousins. I was a problem to my mother, and she let that fact be known to me on many occasions. It seemed that she bemoaned the fact that I was not like the other children (there were four of us, all boys) who could and did eat everything placed before them. Also, they kissed aunts and cousins with gusto. And they were not delicate, nor did they faint, ever.

My father died when I was four years old. I have little recollection of him.

Dan attended the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts, followed by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA).  During his time at PAFA, he joined the armed forces in 1917, during World War I. He fought in the Battle of Argonne Forest in partnership with the French army.  The American forces committed to a front-line assault to capture the railroad station at Sedan to break the rail net supplying the German army in France.

Ultimately the Allied Forces succeeded in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and it contributed greatly to the defeat of Germany and the end of the war.  Dan was one of the many casualties, sustaining a bullet wound to his right arm.  This would be a debilitating wound for anyone, but particularly for a painter who relied on the use of a right hand for the sustenance of his life. But he returned to PAFA, eventually learning how to use his left hand to paint.  Some time afterward, he regained the use of his right hand and was ambidextrous the rest of his life.

1920s New Orleans

Following some travels around the country, Dan arrived in New Orleans in 1924.

He probably became familiar with “the French Quarter group” at one of the soirees filled with artists hosted by Lyle Saxon, a journalist. Lyle gave him work at the Times-Picayune creating sketches for the Sunday supplement. Lyle shared with Dan that he had lived in Baton Rouge, but “simply had to live in New Orleans”.

Lyle commented about his courtyard:  “When I first saw it I thought to myself: this is a place I’d like to sit and drink”.  He continued “When I moved into the Quarter, it was considered courageous because it had fallen into dismal disrepair.”

Lyle met a young school teacher and painter from Ohio, Alberta Kinsey, and together they conceived the idea of an art colony to help revitalize the former grandeur of the French Quarter.

In 1922 William Radcliffe Irby donated the Brulator Mansion, located at 520 Royal Street, for the artists. The Arts and Crafts Club (A&CC) formed, providing a place for students to learn, artists to exhibit, and a general gathering space for painters, sculptors, and writers.  Those writers included the well-established Sherwood Anderson and the blossoming William Faulkner, among others.

Dan became an instructor of drawing and painting there. Other faculty members included Charles Bein, Albert Ricker, Clarence Millet, and Helen Turner. The Historic New Orleans Collection purchased and restored the building several years ago which now serves as a public exhibition space.

Dan was considered a “modern” painter as some of his work was abstract and he also incorporated cubism in many of his paintings. Other artists in New Orleans who were influenced by the cubist break-through – exemplified by Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon – included Josephine Crawford, Paul Ninas, and Xavier Gonzalez.

William Spratling, an artist and Associate Professor of Architecture at Tulane University and his then roommate, William Faulkner captured the creative spirit of the French Quarter group with a book titled Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles. The little book contained illustrations and caricatures of the French Quarter’s core artistic group. Dan’s head was substituted twice in a sketch, in obvious reference of one of Dan’s paintings, “Two Dancers,”  which was a modernistic depiction of two women.

Most of the artists resided in the interior six blocks of the French Quarter, including the Pontalba building, where Dan had an apartment. William Spratling in his autobiography wrote: “We were all very close. We saw each other every day, almost every evening. If it wasn’t at Lyle Saxon’s house, it was at Sherwood and Elizabeth’s or my own.”

Oliver La Farge , who was writing a book about the struggles of the Navajo Indians (for which he would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1930) described the French Quarter artist group: “It was a time of fermentation. The determination to write or paint was based on an inner necessity. When one of the group achieved something, however slight, the others were delighted and everyone took new courage. We had in us the possibility of becoming artists.”

The collaboration of artists, benefactors, and preservationists propelled Lyle and Alberta’s vision into fruition.  The French Quarter resonated with a renewed vibrance.

The Rest of the Story

The years of the late 1920s were a difficult time for Dan. Catherine and his son left him and moved to New York City in 1929. I don’t think he ever saw them again, although he exchanged letters with my mother when I was a child.

Additionally, due to the onset of the Great Depression, artists were hard-hit financially as many of their patrons could no longer afford to purchase art and portraits. Many of the French Quarter group decamped to other locations, because of the financial downturn and rents that were rising because of the enhanced popularity of the Quarter.

In 1935 Lyle Saxon, who remained, helped Dan again by his association with people working at the education division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. He informed Dan that funding could be provided for his own school with no tuition fees. Dan set up a class in a vacant schoolhouse on Carondelet Street advertising: No Rules and No Tuition Fees. Requirements: The desire to paint and learn how to express ideas on canvas.

During the 1930’s Dan met an artist and socially prominent woman, named Elizabeth “Betsy” Fox, and fell in love. After much courting, she consented to marry him. In the late 1940s, they moved to Covington. Dan described their home in a letter:  

This section of Louisiana is in what is called the “Ozone Belt.” There are seven such belts in the world. Just living here is a positive cure for such things as asthma, hay fever and many other illnesses. Our place is half forest and half semi-forest. The Bogue Falaya River enters the back of our land and after many corkscrew turns, leaves by the side door-so to speak. At one point, it is within fifteen feet of the house. We have managed to make a simple shack into something we consider rather sacred. This is truly a beautiful spot. All in all, our life here is the finest I have experienced.

Dan painted regularly but he stopped exhibiting and no longer signed his paintings, focusing on his own explorations.  He passed on from this peaceful existence in December of 1965.

Centricity

When I first started my journey through the dimensions of New Orleans, I was happily married, but after our divorce  in 2015, I sank into a depression.

A friend of mine suggested that I move to New Orleans.  I wasn’t ready for a full-time shift from my beachfront location in Florida,  but the idea had much appeal.  I had studied the city’s history and enjoyed so many aspects of New Orleans, it made sense to experience it on a deeper level by living in the French Quarter part-time.

I contacted a friend with a French Quarter house and proposed to rent part of it. We met for lunch and walked to 823 Royal Street – which is literally in the heart of the French Quarter. The house had been built in the early 1800s. I would later learn that during the 1920s the artist Alberta Kinsey – who had worked with Lyle Saxon to create the Quarter art colony! – had owned the house.  It became a meeting place for many of the neighborhood’s artists, including my grandfather.

Alberta had used the rear building where I came to live as both a residence as well as an artist studio.  It was a small brick two-story building with several French doors, slate floors, and a winding metal staircase that led to a sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom upstairs.

The building was in the center of two courtyards - one behind it and one in the front, between it and the main house that fronted the street. The courtyards were paved with brick and bordered by much luscious foliage. It was a protected space of antiquity and tranquility.

The first night I moved in, my spirits levitated with a sense of renewal.  And I had a strong feeling that I was supposed to be in New Orleans either to revitalize the family history – or be saved by it.

I had studied the 1920s so much that when I walked through the French Quarter my mind was in two time frames; the present and past. Several years later, as I transitioned to a full-time resident, it’s still that way.  I suppose it will be for as long as I live here.

In the present, I experience the comraderie and communion of the French Quarter and the surrounding area with my acquaintances and friends. There is a warmth and acceptance that exists here unlike any other place I have known or known of. Almost every time I step outside of my door, I see someone I like very much or meet someone new that I come to care for, or perhaps experience just a positive, glancing interaction.

But the past seems just as real.  Every time I walk through Pirates Alley, I think of Spratling and Faulkner living there together.  Every time I walk past 520 Royal Street, I remember the Arts & Crafts Club. Every time I pass the Pontalba apartments I visualize the many artists, including Dan, who lived there. Every time I pass 911 Chartres Street where my grandfather had an art school, I touch the building. 

The celebration of life that continues here on an almost nonstop basis fuses both past and present. That is why when someone says, Laissez les bon temps roller, we should respond, Oui, cher!

References:

Bonner, Judith Exhibition Catalog for “The New Orleans Arts & Crafts Club: An Artistic Legacy”

Harvey, Chance. The Life and Selected Letters of Lyle Saxon. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2003.

LaFarge, Oliver. Raw Material. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company 1945.

Spratling, William. File on Spratling. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1932.

The Historic New Orleans Collection artist file; Daniel Whitney