0.9 Edsel cramer, b. 1923

Native born

I was born in Houston, in the old, old Jeff Davis Hospital. They’re renovating it now—you can see it from the freeway. Anyway, Houston…the art that did exist was like, as I remember it, people like [David] Adickes…and who else? The very famous [Ben]DuBose, he was featuring Adickes’ painting, and some other artist that I can’t quite remember. But Adickes was a big deal, and whoever did the flat metal things—[Charles] Pebworth. There were three biggies—operating in the so-called art limbo. The third person [was]Herb Mears, because they were doing the same kind of thing when it came to paint. John Biggers was drawing over at TSU—doing murals and all the people hated those murals. All the black people denied being African-connected at all. And that was Houston. Then all of the sudden something happened: the black power movement came along and every black person with money and a house couldn’t buy enough John Biggers. They all wanted black art. They would ask me, “Do you own any black art?” And I would try to [tell] the difference between an artist who is black and having the subject be black. What exactly were they looking for? I actually felt it was a terrible period of hypocrisy.

Long way around

Way back in the 40s they had the Museum school. They looked at my work and he [James Chillman] says, “Oh, yeah—you have talent. But we don’t think it’s a good idea to have a class for one person [due to segregation]. We recommend Chicago.” So I took off for Chicago. At that point the Museum had one day open for black folks. And that was on Monday when the Museum was closed. I’d go to the Museum, walk all through thinking, “Where’s everybody else?” I didn’t realize that it was just open for black people [on Mondays] and not for white folks.

So I went to Chicago…the Art Institute of Chicago. I was still thinking I was going to be an illustrator, so I went to those commercial art schools and there was no way I could get into those schools. But the Art Institute…that changed my whole attitude about art. I got to see [artists] like da Vinci, Cézanne, Degas, El Greco, Monet, Sargent, Chagall. And they had a Georgia O’Keefe, a huge painting of flowers—the insides of flowers. All these people were a new experience for me. I had known them maybe in a book—but never in real life. And best of all, they had this wonderful art school right in the middle of the museum itself—same building—and you could always leave your painting, leave your drawing, and look at the real McCoy.

What else do I do after that? So I leave Chicago; I’m in the Navy. They realized, “Here’s a man who’s got talent for drawing.” So they give me a project like painting numbers on chicken coops. That’s the funniest thing in the world. Yeah, and once they gave me all the would-be officers, like lieutenants, captains, admirals. I started painting people and the sailors had families and they would bring little photographs—wanting me to paint them with the family. Just awful stuff. I enjoyed it because I didn’t have to do anything but paint. I was getting kind of excited about learning to be in the military, but the irony was that they put me to work as a painter! I went on to paint people…you know, women, men, everybody. And finally I was transferred to the Pacific. Hawaii was the final stop. I got to create a little drawing class and it was a very wonderful experience.