81. Evangeline St. Claire

Life Dates1906-unknown
Place of Birthunknown
Place of Deathunknown
Birth Nameunknown

Evangeline St. Claire exhibited two prints in a group exhibition of Atelier 17 artists held from October 1 to 24, [ca. 1949].1 With the titles The Star and The Sphere, her prints suggest an interest in celestial bodies, which was a shared focus among many members of Atelier 17 and the broader community of postwar artists. Before Atelier 17, St. Claire trained at the Art Students League with William Von Schlegell and Robert Laurent and at the National Academy of Design.2 She was a member of the Federal Art Project’s Easel Division, and according to government records compiled by historian Kimn Carlton-Smith, St. Claire was African American.3

Notes

  1. Exhibition pamphlet, Tate Archives, Papers of Stanley William Hayter, 200510/3/205/1. There is no year written on this pamphlet, but the dating of the prints included suggests 1949. ↩
  2. See chart documenting women artist’s training at home and abroad in Kimn Carlton-Smith, “A New Deal for Women: Women Artists and the Federal Art Project, 1935-1939” (PhD diss., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 1990), 318. ↩
  3. Carlton-Smith, 309, 315. It is possible, though unconfirmed, that St. Claire may have been the daughter of Henry Whipple St. Clair, an Episcopal deacon with Dakota heritage, who was based in Minnesota and South Dakota. ↩