Art Chowder September | October, Issue 23 | Page 34

The Myrtle Woldson
Performing Arts Center at Gonzaga Univerisity
By Melville Holmes and Kathryn Brogdon
Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center Exterior
photo: courtesy of Gonzaga University
W
hen I first came to the door
of Miss Myrtle Woldson’s home
on Spokane’s prestigious Sumner
Avenue and was ushered inside,
I was a bit stunned to find myself
transported back to another age
and place: an exquisitely tasteful
interior, where the only hint of
modernity was electric lighting.
The reigning aesthetic sensibilities
were like those found in 18th-
century French painting, interior
décor, and decorative arts — beauty,
order, balance, proportion, logic,
refinement. The serenely restrained
color harmonies and atmosphere
might best be likened to those
subtle nuances found in paintings
by Jean-Marc Nattier or Jean-
Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. She was an
inveterate Francophile.
34 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE
The Living Room Northeast Corner
The oil painting: A Shepherdess with Her Flock, is by James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)
photo: Melville Holmes