Lucy Harris Locke (1904 – 1989)

Negro Boy, 1932, oil on canvas board, 16 x 13 inches, exhibited: 1) Third Local Artists Exhibition, Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio TX, September, 1932 (label verso), and 2) Six Circuit Exhibit of the Texas Fine Arts Association, San Angelo, TX, January, 1934 (see Oil Paintings and Etchings Included in State Art Show, San Angelo Standard Times, January, 14, 1934 – referencing the artist and this painting)

$3250

Lucy Harris Locke was an American Scene painter, illustrator, teacher, sculptor, muralist, and art critic. Although born in Valdosta, Georgia, Locke spent most of her professional career in Texas. She lived in El Paso, San Antonio, Sonora, Mexico, and the Texas Hill Country before relocating to Corpus Christi in 1931. In 1921-1924, and again in 1932, she studied with Xavier Gonzalez, Ellsworth Woodward and Will Henry Stevens at Sophie Newcomb College, in New Orleans. She also studied independently with Frederic Taubes, Stella Shurtleff, and Increase Robinson. From the mid-1940s, Locke was the art critic for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and from 1944 through 1946, she served as Chair of the Corpus Christi Art Foundation. She painted murals for the Corpus Christi Civic Center and in 1949 she wrote and illustrated Naturally Yours, Texas: Verses and Illustrations, a work about Texas and its flora, fauna and topography. Locke lived in Corpus Christi until 1986 when she moved to Austin and in 1987 to Santa Fe. Locke was a member of the American Artists Professional League, American Federation of Arts, Art Association of New Orleans, Corpus Christi Art Foundation, Corpus Christi Art Guild, South Texas Art League, Southern States Art League, Southwestern Sculpture Society, Texas Fine Arts Association, where she served as a director, and Texas Watercolor Society. During her long and eclectic career, Locke exhibited with these associations and at the Witte Memorial Museum, where the present work was exhibited in 1932 and where she later had a solo exhibition in 1935. Locke’s work was cited for its originality. In connection with the 22nd Annual Exhibition of the Southern States Art League, she was praised as a “highly individual painter.” Locke’s art is in the collections of the South Texas Institute for the Arts, Del Mar College, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. She is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.