IngrahamTulsaArtist

Celebrations

Deane made a calendar sometime around 1978. Most of the pictures described how the month acquired its name or the god it was named after. The calendar was made as a Christmas gift for Deane’s parents and possibly for Louise’s parents. Deane pasted school pictures on the dates of each child’s birthday.

January – Janus, an ancient Roman god of doorways, of beginnings, and of the rising and setting of the sun, usually represented as having one head with two bearded faces back to back, looking in opposite directions – one looking to the future, the other to the past. The ship might represent the arrival of Saturn to the city Janus founded, Janiculum.

February – Februalia is an Roman ancient festival in which fire is used for purification. This month moves from winter to spring. The couple may be attributed to Juno, goddess of marriage and love.

March – Martius, a Roman god, is attributed to military campaigning. Deane is also combining western images…flying kites on a windy day.

April – Romulus is plowing the boundary of Rome. Rome is said to be founded April 21. The wolf image in the trees represent Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf.

May – Maia is the oldest of seven Pleiades. To the Romans, Maia was the incarnation of the earth mother and goddess of spring. An image of Mercury is on her forward. He is the son of Maia.

June – Juno is often shown as warlike with a goat-skin cloak, wearing a diadem, and carrying a spear. She is thought to be connected to love and marriage.

July – Julius Caesar was born in Quintilis, the 5th month. He was a Roman general and statesman. When he changed the calendar he adopted his own name as the seventh month.

August – Augustus was the first Roman emperor following the death of Julius Caesar who adopted him. He is holding a map of his empire. The sphinx figure, which is a symbol of secrecy, was the image on his signet ring.

September – The blonde woman is Ceres/Demeter. The myth is that we have the seasons because she grieves when her daughter is in the underworld. Her grief brings on fall/winter. The brunette is possibly Prosperine/Persephone. She is crying because she has to go back to to the underworld.

Gina recalls Kirk posed for the April calendar.

October and December is missing. November is above.

Rising Through the Ashes!

I will call this one 1976 because that is the year it was painted. I am comparing the cleaned up painting (right) to how the painting fared after the fire (left). We were lucky it got saved at all. Kudos to Framin’ Gallery of Edmond, Oklahoma to the fabulous restoration. The way 1976 originally looked is in the Seventies gallery in the Family section. Deane took a slide of the painting plus many others in 1979. Many of the paintings we lost live on because of those slides.

Starting at the top going clockwise: Kirk, at age 12; Jill, at age 11; Gina, at age 7; Anne, at age 14; Kay, at age 9. The dog’s name is Whitey.

Jill has a story about this painting. Deane had an art exhibition/sale that year. Gary Goree, her future husband’s uncle, also displayed paintings. Mary Anne Goree, her mother-in-law, always tells how she remembers seeing this painting at the sale. Jill didn’t meet Brian Goree until seven years later. The flyer below may have been from 1977 because March 6 fell on a Sunday that year.

Ridin’ High!

This is a beautiful print from a painting, but I have no idea where the painting is. The print was found in a plastic sleeve. Deane made slides of sketches of cowboys and horses in the mid-1970s. The print was not one of the slides, so it could be from the 80s. I included it with the Seventies Gallery because it fits in so well. Several of the cowboy sketches he made into full paintings. Alas, the original sketches were not found.

Update: Gina sent in photos of the blue vase. You can view them in Early Paintings, about 3/4 down.

Seventies Gallery is nearly complete. The last entry is the calendar Deane made about 1975.

What’s in a name?

The Ingraham signature through the decades…..

Before 1968. Heavy ink, capital letters and spaced apart. During this period, Deane’s signature was often all over the place. Sometimes at the bottom as in this detail of Louise on the Couch with the Blue Lamp, or running along a microphone stand, or hiding in the background.
1968 – 1970 The ink is thinner and still all caps.
A self-portrait, 1970. This is the only painting that has the ‘g’ as lowercase. It is the first self-portrait where he sports a mustache.

4. The painting reeks 1960s! But I don’t really know. It is mixed media with bits of brown paper and foil (see the mirror?) There is no other artwork that has this signature. Girl on Bike was shown at an art sale NFS.

5. Hawk, 1970 This signature will last. Sometimes the ‘I’ is longer than the other letters, but the ‘G’ is definitely bigger. Most paintings are signed lower right. It is not usual to have a signature in red-violet.

6. Wendy, 1974 This is the way most paintings are signed.

Henry’s Pride, 1962

This was painted in 1962! A very different style from most of Deane’s painting from the sixties. I think he spent more time on this one. He entered it in the Tulsa, OK Philbrook Art Center’s twenty-second annual exhibition April 3 through April 26, 1962. It was listed as “Oil $100”. It did not sell and I believe it is now lost.

Henry Holcomb Bennett remains best known as the author of the popular patriotic poem, “Hats Off – The Flag Goes By.” This poem was first published in “An American Anthology” in 1900, in “The Young and Field Reader, Book Five” in 1915, and in Woman’s World, July 1919. It was soon sung widely—especially on the 4th of July.

The Flag is Passing By

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A dash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!