Linford Donovan (1906-2003) Nationally-renowned Linford Donovan was born in Los Angeles in 1906 and raised in Southern California. Her privileged life in art began at age 10 with after-school and weekend private lessons in art, French, and etiquette from French miniaturist artist and tutor Elle Shepard Bush. Linford said that these five years of special training had a profound influence on her life, teaching her how to “make choices in art-making and how to prioritize graciousness and good taste in all realms.” Drawing and painting classes at UC Los Angeles earned Linford a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 1928, followed by a Masters in art and teaching degree from UC Berkeley in 1932. In 1935 she worked as a costume designer with Edith Head at Paramount Studios in Hollywood and taught art at community colleges. The next two years found her in New York teaching fashion, pattern-making, and interior design at the Pratt Institute. Between marrying John S.F. Donovan in 1937 and 1948, the couple moved often and traveled widely, including throughout the South Seas. In addition Linford wrote a weekly column for the Sacramento Bee, produced illustrations for Dance Magazine, served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy for the director of WAVES during World War ll, promoted the enlistment of Black women into the Navy, studied the impacts of women working in war-production industries in place of men who had gone off to fight overseas, and earned an Army Commendation medal for the handbook she created for returning servicemen.The Donovan’s moved to Carmel in 1949 where their daughter Gael was born. In between long travels around the globe, Linford lived in Carmel for the rest of her life. It was here that she became serious about making fine art painting her profession. Gael often sat as her mother’s model. Gael also served as Carmel Art Association Director for more than a decade, and she is currently an Artist Member as a painter in her own right. Linford once said, “It is critical for an artist to learn to see, to develop an awareness of color, form, texture, and movement in the world. A tree is no longer just a tree. It is texture, patterns, gradation of light, shapes, and negative spaces through the branches.” While her subject matter varied, she was most drawn to portraits. “I’m happiest when I’m painting people. They are so interesting to observe. There’s such a variety of bone structure, skin tones, and moods. These expressions reveal what is going on inside….I found that all skin is not pink and not all tomatoes are red, that the manipulation of light on an object can intensify pictorial impact and change colors so that we see them in beautiful and more exciting ways.” An art reviewer wrote that “…Linford has the ability to create an entire life’s narrative in the face and eyes of her subjects.” Linford juried into the CAA in 1952. During the next three decades she exhibited across the United States and abroad, illustrated several children’s books, and wrote many teaching volumes for the popular Walter Foster Art Publications series including Linford Donovan Paints Heads and The Folk Art of Mexico. Two years after John Donovan passed away in 1961, Linford married her second husband, Captain Robert Beebe, in Greece. Captain Beebe was dean of Monterey’s Naval Post-Graduate School, a nautical architect, and a ship designer. While Gael attended school in Switzerland, the Beebe’s celebrated a very long honeymoon by sailing the Greek isles and then cruising along the Yugoslavian and Sicilian coasts to Malta and the Italian and French Rivieras, followed by journeys on the rivers of France and Germany on their way to England—all aboard Passagemaker, a boat Captain Beebe designed. Later in the marriage, the Beebe’s traveled together throughout Asia, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Middle East, the Bahamas, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii. Along the way Linford always sought out distinctive character studies and authentic cultural backdrops to respectfully photograph in order to portray them later in paintings. In 1977 on the morning after the opening reception of a large solo exhibition at the CAA, Linford and her daughter boarded a ship and spent four months in Japan. There they studied Japanese screen making, the continuation of the artist’s intense interest in painting Asian portraits coupled with the culture’s traditional motifs such as peonies, dahlias, pine trees, azaleas, chrysanthemums, and cherry blossoms. This led to a very limited series of carefully-composed, multi-part, mixed media screen paintings in oil and acrylic inspired by Japanese art and literature. One example is the artwork PEONIES being featured as “available for acquisition” in this WHAT’S OLD posting. With these screens Linford reinterpreted ancient Oriental traditions and symbolism with her keen admiration for artist Gustav Klimt as well as High Renaissance materials and techniques like hand-patterned gold, silver, and copper leaf for backgrounds. With both her screens and her portraits, Linford was distinguished for her rich, vivid colors and her fascinating interplay of light and shadow. She was called a “true craftsman, paying careful attention to every brushstroke and every color she mixed on her palette.” In 1988 at the age of 82 and upon the death of Captain Beebe, Linford suddenly took up watercolor. She became a late-career member of the Salmagundi Club in New York as well as the National Watercolor Society, entering many of their competitions, and winning many prizes and awards. Linford Donovan died in her Carmel home at age 97 in 2003.