A virtual event co-hosted by Neal Auction Company. Click HERE to listen.
Letters Read’s second lady Louisiana artist, Angela Gregory, is a true Louisiana hero of women in the arts in the 20th century. Busting traditional boundaries and forging her own way. She was born in New Orleans in 1903. Became a successful sculptor garnering public and private commissions at a time when equal rights for women were only beginning.
This program owes a tremendous shout-out to Nancy Penrose, co-author of Gregory’s biography, A Dream and a Chisel. Thanks again to Michel Varisco, the subject of our last podcast.
Gregory’s mother was a stay-at-home mom and her father was a well-respected Tulane professor. In 1925, she convinced her parents to send her to Paris to learn how to become an artist. A highly unusual move for a young woman to do alone. It is to be remembered that women, white women, in this country had only gained the right to vote five years previously.
In Paris, she became the only American ever to study under Antoine Bourdelle and work in his stone cutting studio. Later, Gregory credited her very unusual success as a lady artist to Bourdelle’s tutelage and help.
Her earliest influence was her mother, Selina Elizabeth Bres Gregory. Who had graduated from Newcomb College. Which was then Tulane University’s women’s college. Where she had the good fortune to study with artist brothers Ellsworth and William Woodward not long after they joined the faculty. The work of both Gregory women, the Woodwards, Newcomb Pottery, and Bourdelle, are prized as valuable pieces of art today.