Kelly Haygood Stevens (Texas, 1896-1991), "False River Oaks", oil on canvas

sight: 10 x 14 in., frame: 15.5 x 19.5 in.

Provenance: A Fort Worth, Texas collection

Kelly Haygood Stevens was born in Mexia, Texas, where a bout of scarlet fever left him deaf at the age of five. His parents enrolled him in the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, Texas, where he was a student of noted Texas artist Nannie Huddle. After graduating in 1914, Stevens enrolled in Gallaudet College (Washington, DC) along with the Corcoran School of Art. Gallaudet granted Stevens a Bachelor of Arts (1920) and later an honorary doctorate of humane letters (1971). In 1920, Stevens began a teaching career at the New Jersey School for the Deaf (Trenton) and studied life drawing from Henry R. McGinnis at the Trenton School of Industrial Arts. He later studied in Paris under Jean Hanau, another deaf painter, and spent the summer of 1926 traveling in Italy and Spain with the Spanish painter, Valentine de Zubiaurre. Then he returned to the New Jersey School for the Deaf from 1927-1929. Stevens painted in New Mexico and Arizona for a few years, a sojourn that resulted in studies of Indian tribal costumes and dances that are considered some of his best works. From 1933-34, Stevens returned to Paris to study at the Academie Colarossi, then worked for ten months in Madrid with Zubiaurre. Aftern painting in 1939 in Taxco, Mexico as a student of the portrait artist Wayman Adams, Stevens took a teaching position at the Louisiana School for the Deaf, Baton Rouge. He remained on the faculty until 1949, earning in the interim a Master of Arts from Louisiana State University (1938). During this time, his subjects largely consisted of bayou scenes and African-American life. In 1948, Stevens settled in Austin, Texas, bequeathing his collection upon his death to the University of Texas at Austin.

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