Blanche McVeigh

Blanche McVeigh was born August 23, 1895, in St. Charles, Missouri, to Blanche Fielding and William M. McVeigh, a flour mill salesman from Virginia; the family moved to Fort Worth when McVeigh was a child.[1] She was the second of four children.[2] McVeigh attended Fort Worth public schools and, after graduating high school, was hired as a teacher at the Walter A. Huffman School in downtown Fort Worth.[3][4] She was an active participant in Fort Worth society, hosting parties, performing with the Clio Club[5] and volunteering with the Red Cross during World War I.[6]

Finding that she did not particularly enjoy teaching, McVeigh left Texas to study commercial art at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis in 1919-1920. Returning to Fort Worth, McVeigh spent the 1920s running an advertising agency and doing commercial art.[7] She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts during one summer and the Art Institute of Chicago during another; she also attended the Art Students League of New York. McVeigh spent 1927 in Europe learning aquatint, which would become her preferred printmaking medium,[1] and studied with Oklahoma artist Doel Reed.[8]

McVeigh was renowned for her etchings, and particularly for her mastery of the challenging medium of aquatint. Her genre images of African Americans and so-called "Negro Angels," inspired by her love of gospel music and spirituals, were especially popular with collectors.[7][9]

In 1932, McVeigh founded the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts with fellow local sculptor and fellow Washington University alumna Evaline Sellors; McVeigh taught figure drawing and etching there. McVeigh and Sellors were soon joined by Fort Worth artist Wade Jolley.[1] The school was located in the Little Theater building behind the Fort Worth Woman's Club. Although it closed in 1941 with the advent of World War II, the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts was influential because it counted members of the future Fort Worth Circle group of artists among its students, most notably Bror Utter and Veronica Helfensteller.

From approximately 1940 to 1949, McVeigh worked in a local frame shop; she owned her own frame shop on Throckmorton Street in downtown Fort Worth from 1951 until 1962.[7][10] She also operated a home studio[9] that housed her massive Sturges printing press, which is now owned by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, where it is still used in printmaking workshops.[11] The press was so large and heavy that the floor needed to be shored up to support it.[11] She was given the Sturges press in 1942 so she could complete a large print commissioned by the Northern Pump Company, Minneapolis.[12]

McVeigh produced little art in the last few years of her life due to poor health.

McVeigh died on June 1, 1970, at age 74.[22] Funeral services were held at All Saints Episcopal Church; McVeigh, who did not marry, was buried alongside her parents at Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth.[23] Later that year, a memorial exhibition including most of McVeigh's prints was held in the artist's honor at Electra Carlin Gallery.[7]