From then on , I was never concerned with the degree of realism , of projecting naturalistic readable images .”
Kenneth Callahan statehouse in Olympia and the post offices in Centralia and Anacortes .
Callahan saw art , and wanted to create it , from his earliest childhood . He was born in Spokane , and moved with his family to Glasgow , Montana when he was about six . Charles M . Russell , “ The Cowboy Artist ” was a friend of the family — he sometimes visited the Callahan home , with paintings in his saddlebags . The cheesecloth substrate got wrinkled on the journey , so Mrs . Callahan ironed them before the fascinated child ’ s eye . Little Kenneth Callahan also saw some fine paintings from a local artist named Ralph Breckenridge , from the Blackfoot tribe . The boy watched him paint and got to do some painting himself .
In 1920 , the Callahan family moved back to Seattle . His art teacher at Broadway High School was Tillie Piper , who had her students draw from plaster casts of Greek and Roman nude statues . “ That was very liberal at the time ,” he later commented . Callahan enrolled at the University of Washington , but dropped out before the first semester ended . He and some friends drove to San Francisco in a Model T . It was there that Callahan had his first art show , with some drawings of Yosemite at the Schwabacher-Frey store on Market Street . He found employment doing illustrations for a children ’ s magazine , but returned to Seattle in 1928 . It was there
that he began working for the Seattle Art Museum , which was just being built at Volunteer Park at the time . He worked there part time as a curator until 1953 .
It was there that he also met and married Margaret Bundy , who wrote for one of the city ’ s three newspapers , The Seattle Star . She later edited a local magazine , The Town Crier , which covered the local arts scene . They had a son in 1938 and remained married until her death in 1961 . Three years later , Callahan married Beth Inge Gotfredsen . Of the four “ mystic artists ” of the Northwest School , he was the only one to marry .
The Callahans often entertained the other artists of the Northwest School at their home . Along with Tobey , Graves , and Anderson , they were often visited by a young artist named Bill Cumming , who was an expert on music as well as art , and one of my revered teachers at the Art Institute of Seattle . In 1984 , Cumming wrote about those years in “ Sketchbook : A Memoir of the 1930s and the Northwest School .” He said he was enraptured by Margaret , who “ nurtured the vision of an art growing out of the natural morality of the universe as it is , no preaching , no propagandizing , no self-righteous gestures .”
Like his wife , Kenneth Callahan also wrote as a reporter for The Seattle Times —“ not attempting any idea of being a critic at all .
46 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE