Publication Date: Jan 11 2012 ISBN/EAN13: 1468181416 / 9781468181418 Page Count: 160 Binding Type: US Trade Paper Trim Size: 6" x 9" Language: English Color: Black and White Related Categories: Art / Conceptual http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-polly-thayer-12461 Oral history interview with Polly Thayer, 1995 May 12 - 1996 Feb. 1 Thayer, Polly, b. 1904 d. 2006 Painter Mass. Size: Sound recording: 3 sound cassettes (4 1/2 hrs.) : analog. 89 p. transcript Transcript: 89 p. Collection Summary: An interview of Polly Thayer (Starr) conducted 1995 May 12-1996 Feb 1, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art. 5/12/95 session: Thayer talks about her childhood in an upper class Boston family, thriving on drawing in charcoal from casts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, under tutelage of Beatrice Van Ness; her social debut, 1921-1922; a trip in the summer of 1922 to the Orient with her mother and brother where she was caught in the Tokyo earthquake; Philip Hale's method of teaching drawing at the Museum School in Boston, 1923-1924, and, later, privately; Eugene Speicher's urging her to free herself from Hale's teaching; the difficulty of making the transition to painting which; and winning of the Hallgarten Prize of National Academy of Design, 1929. 5/18/95 session: Studying with Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown, Mass. in the summer of 1923-1924, which countered the rigidity of her training at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston School; travels in Spain and Morocco in early 1929, at the time her large painting of a nude, "Circles," won the Hallgarten Prize; the importance to her of a letter in 1929 from the critic, Royal Cortissoz, urging her to not fall into the trap of the Boston School and become formulaic in her work; her first one-person show at Doll and Richards, Boston, which resulted in 18 portrait commissions; her ease with which she did self-portraits early in her career, but not so later; and her difficulty in holding the attention of portrait sitters. 5/30/95 session: Studying with Harry Wickey at the Art Students League, who taught her by boldly re-working her drawings for "plastic" values, which Starr quickly achieved; sketching medical operations and back-stage at theatres, which gave her the dramatic subject matter she sought in the early 1930s; her portraits; getting married in 1933 and the affect on her work; and her work at the Painter's Workshop in Boston with Gardner Cox and William Littlefield. She recalls May Sarton whose portrait she painted in 1936, Charles Hopkinson, and Hans Hofmann. 2/01/96 session: The distractions from painting brought about by marriage, children, acting, an active social life and much travel; her increased involvement in social concerns through her conversion to Quakerism; the simplification of her paintings beginning in the late 1930s and her steady execution of portrait commissions, which took less time; her exhibitions in Boston and New York through the 1940s and the rarity of them after that; being a board member of the Institute of Modern Art, Boston, and its co-founder, Nathaniel Saltonstall; her approach to painting which amounts to seeking the invisible in the visual world; and the onset of glaucoma which has ended her painting career. Biographical/Historical Note: Polly E. Thayer, 1904-2006, painter of Boston, Mass. This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. How to Use this Interview A transcript of this interview appears below. The transcript of this interview is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Polly Thayer, 1995 May 12 - 1996 Feb. 1, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution For more information on using the Archives’ resources, see the FAQ or Ask Us. Also in the Archives Polly Thayer (Starr) papers, 1922-2008 Interview Transcript This transcript is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Polly Thayer, 1995 May 12 - 1996 Feb. 1, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview with Polly Thayer (Starr) Conducted by Robert Brown At the Artist's home in Boston, Massachusettes May 12, 18, 30, 1995 and February 1, 1996 Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Polly Thayer (Starr) on May 12, 18, 30 1995 and February 1, 1996. The interview took place in Boston, MA, and was conducted by Robert Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview ROBERT BROWN: I thought we might start with perhaps some of your earliest memories. You were born in Boston in 1904, I believe? Your parents were Ezra Ripley Thayer and Ethel Randolph (Clark) Thayer. Can you describe your family a bit? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes. Father's side of the family was from Concord, the Old Manse. I used to visit there. His father was a professor at Harvard Law School, and--I say invented, I don't know what the right word is--I think he formulated the Law of Evidence. And back of that Emerson, and a long line of Ripleys. There was an old Ezra Ripley who was a minister, I think; but they were mostly legal. Father became Dean of the Harvard Law School. ROBERT BROWN: Was he Dean at the time you were born? POLLY THAYER (STARR): No, he had only been Dean about five years when he died, and I was eleven then. When I was born he was in practice with Storey, Thorndike, Palmer and Thayer, in Boston. On Mother's side of the family, Connecticut was the family seat, and that was mostly ministers. My great-grandfather was Alexander Hamilton Vinton, whose brother was Bishop of Massachusetts. They were both Episcopalian ministers, and there's a St. Gaudens plaque commemorating him in Emmanuel Church here in Boston, where he served for a short while. Her grandfather Vinton meant a lot to Mother. It was the days of Mesmer, and he was very interested in everything of that sort, everything occult--being a minister, the invisible world was important to him--and I used to hear a lot about it. We used to go on visits at Pomfret. ROBERT BROWN: Pomfret, Connecticut? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Would they have seances, hold sessions, that sort of thing? POLLY THAYER (STARR): I don't think so. There was one story, though, where I think grandfather had a ghost with a candle on her head for his guests. Well, they told ghost stories a lot, and he'd stage-managed it so that in the shadows at the end of the lawn she appeared at just the right moment. [laughter] But I don't think there was anything with any continuity about it. ROBERT BROWN: Was your mother very interested in that sort of thing? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes, she was. She was very pious--well, pious is a pejorative word today. She was a faithful church-goer, and when Father died, she restored the church in Hingham in memory of him. It was always in terms of the church that she thought, fundamentally. ROBERT BROWN: Were you brought up to be quite pious yourself? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Ah, yes, yes. We went to church very faithfully, and Sunday school. ROBERT BROWN: Were there brothers and sisters? POLLY THAYER (STARR): I had a brother, who taught Roman Law at Harvard, and a sister who died at the age of twenty, who was lovely, a saint. ROBERT BROWN: So your brother followed in the family tradition of law practice. Not merely practicing, but also scholars of the law, is that right? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes. He would never have done very well practicing. He was rather eccentric and highly sensitive, and the practical end of things was not his strong suit. But he was a fascinating and quite a brilliant character. I think he was in his thirties when he was the accredited authority on Roman law in the Western world. He was an exchange professor in Berlin, and he loved the Germans always afterwards. He wrote a book called the Lex Aquila, that was I think a little classic of a sort, and a long history of the Roman Law, that hasn't been published but might be any time. ROBERT BROWN: Was he about your age? POLLY THAYER (STARR): He was five years older than I, but a very strong influence. ROBERT BROWN: In what way? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Well, he was very funny, and very brilliant, and people amused him. He was fond of me, and he was a powerful personality. If he took a fancy to you, you became his creature more or less. He liked to...make you perform. ROBERT BROWN: Since your father died when you were eleven, did your brother act in some ways as your father? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Well, he was off-horse always. He was the Protestant with a capital P, so his influence was rather disruptive. No, it was not a fatherly relationship. It was very much brother-and-sister teasing. But no responsibility. He was the enfant terrible. [laughter] ROBERT BROWN: Where were you raised, in Boston? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes. Born, and lived until I got married, at 77 Bay State Road. Mother and Father built the house there, and I can remember going riding... We had a stable back of a synagogue, fairly nearby, with horses. Mother was a good horsewoman, and they'd ride every day. ROBERT BROWN: Where might they ride? Could they then ride along the Charles? POLLY THAYER (STARR): They'd ride out to the Fenway, that was generally the trek. ROBERT BROWN: The Bay State Road was only just being built up at the turn of the century, wasn't it? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes, half of it was empty lots. ROBERT BROWN: So you have fond memories of that? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes, I have. We had friends all along the block, and it was great fun. ROBERT BROWN: What activities would there have been for you as a young girl? before, say, even you went to school? POLLY THAYER (STARR): I went to a little primary school, Miss Woodward's, which I remember not so fondly because I was very stupid. I couldn't do anything with mathematics, and cheated my way through by just copying a girl's paper in front of me [laughter], and that wasn't much fun. Then I went to Winsor School and didn't enjoy that either--didn't like schools until I went to boarding school. Had two years at Westover, and that was delirious excitement. But life in the city as a young child was... Well, we roller skated on the Esplanade, days on end--that was great fun--and then, Mayor Curtis' two daughters were just a block up, and they were a very lively, high-spirited pair, and my sister and I just played endless games of every kind--hide and seek, and [laughter] everything you can think of, for years, and that I remember with great pleasure. ROBERT BROWN: Would you summer somewhere else? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes, in Hingham. ROBERT BROWN: Was that a place to which your family were attached, or had some connections? POLLY THAYER (STARR): Yes. Well, the question was, where would they go that would be near the city for Father so he could get to Cambridge--commute--when it was necessary. The North Shore was pretty cold--Mother loved the heat, never hot enough for her--so they started by renting on the South Shore, and bought a farm on Turkey Hill almost immediately after they were married, and we always went there. ROBERT BROWN: So summers were a considerable contrast from the city?
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