Onya La Tour

Onya La Tour (1896–1976) was an American art collector and dealer, artists' model, manager of art galleries in Puerto Rico, New York City, and Indiana, and an advocate for modernism and the appreciation of modern art. In the 1930s to 1960s, La Tour acquired hundreds of paintings and graphic art works by modernist artists, many of whom later became notable. During the Great Depression, she was Director of the Federal Art Gallery in New York City, which supported artists under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration. She also operated her own private Onya LaTour Gallery in New York. In 1939, she brought her collection of more than 400 works of art from New York City to the artists colony in rural Brown County, Indiana, where she founded a short-lived Indiana Museum of Modern Art (see #Homes). From 1948 to the 1960s, she designed and built three unusual and creative homes where she displayed her collection, often inviting diverse groups of people to mingle and experience modern art. In 1972, a few years before her death at age 80, she donated over 100 paintings and graphic art works as well as her lifetime collection of papers to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, where an exhibit of selections from her collection took place October–April, 2014. La Tour was "a woman of contradiction and mystery, some of which she created herself" and "a woman ahead of her time". "While Onya, strictly speaking, was not an artist, her life was her art."
Biography.
Early life.
La Tour was born "Ona Alberta Tarr" to Simon Wesley Tarr (?-1915?) and Elva Ethel Hardin Tarr (1878-1962) of Washington, Indiana. Ona had a difficult childhood. Her father was a heavy drinker and abusive. Ona left home at age 14. Her mother had separated from her father sometime earlier. She lived for a time with her father in Montana, and then with her step-mother and half brother (see Alva La Toor below) in Oklahoma. Simon Tarr sometimes may have used the names Toor or LaToor. It is not known when Ona adopted the name "Onya La Tour" (also sometimes given as "Onya LaTour"). In a 1940 newspaper article, her first name was consistently "Ona" and her last name "La Tour" or "LaTour".
La Tour attended Graceland College in Lamona, Iowa, where she met Albro Latimer Kellock, whom she married in 1920. In 1921, they homesteaded 160 acres near Spokane, Washington. La Tour's daughter Manya was born on the homestead ca. 1926. After five years there, a forest fire destroyed their home, and they moved to Seattle, Washington. There, La Tour developed a circle of artist friends and began to collect art. Her home became a gathering place for "architects, writers, musicians and 'revolutionaries' in all the arts".
In the 1930s, La Tour traveled extensively in Europe. She had a close relationship with artist Arnold Franz Brasz, with whom she shared a studio in the Beechwood area of Hollywood, California. She sat as an artist's model for many artists (see #Art Portraits of Onya La Tour).
In 1935, La Tour moved to Puerto Rico with Antonio Colorado, where she directed a gallery.
New York City.
Later in 1935, La Tour moved from Puerto Rico to New York City. There she became friends with many later prominent artists, operated several galleries (see next section), and acquired hundreds of artworks, often directly from the artists. From 1936 to 1939, La Tour had a romantic relationship with Maurice Jungbeck. They lived at 596 Riverside Drive, New York City, which also housed the "Onya La Tour Gallery" (see #Galleries). "As a result of occasional disputes with Jungbeck, Onya began to spend some time in Indianapolis [Indiana] in 1938 and 1939."
Galleries.
La Tour owned and/or operated the following art galleries.
"The WPA program made no distinction between representational and nonrepresentational art. Abstraction had not yet gained favor in the 1930s and 1940s and, thus, was virtually unsalable. As a result, the Federal Art Project supported such iconic artists as Jackson Pollock before their work could earn them income." Quoted from Federal Art Project#Background.
La Tour's subsequent homes Spellbound House, Saint Blue Cloud's House, and her house on Browncliff Lane also served as private galleries (see #Exhibitions).
Modernism in Indiana.
Indiana Museum for Modern Art.
From July, 1938 to December, 1939 the bulk of La Tour's collection of approximately 500 art works by approximately 100 artists was warehoused in Indianapolis. La Tour moved with her daughter from New York to Indiana in the winter of 1939–40.
A small exhibit was displayed in a private home in Indianapolis in Spring, 1940. La Tour's Museum opened in summer, 1940 (see links below photographs and a painting of the Museum below). A larger, rotating exhibit was held at Indiana University, Bloomington, in Fall, 1940 (see Exhibitions). This enabled her to move her collection temporarily to Indiana University, because the fire hazard was high in the dry Fall at the new Museum.
La Tour lived in the barn so the farmhouse could be used as the Museum gallery.
She envisioned classes in handicrafts, gardening, and sewing for the local children, but these plans may never have come to fruition.
Spellbound House.
In 1947 and 1948, La Tour bought land closer to the town and artists' colony of Nashville, Indiana. There she designed and built a concrete-block home that she called "Spellbound House" (see links below to photographs and painting of this home).
Saint Blue Cloud's House.
Sometime in the 1950s, La Tour designed and began building (mostly with her own labor) a wood frame house across the road from Spellbound House. This new home she called Saint Blue Cloud's House. Many photographs of this house taken in 1958–1963 are in the Indianapolis Museum of Art Archive, and see the link below under #Homes to a photograph of this house.
Fire: In 1962, La Tour was away for months, and the electricity was turned off. When she returned from New York City around Thanksgiving, an electrician turned the electricity on while La Tour was shopping in Nashville. Just as La Tour returned home about noon, moisture caused an electric box near the kitchen to burst into flame. She phoned for help. While the fire consumed some paintings, papers, books and a closet, volunteer firemen arrived and threw other paintings out on the lawn. Shortly, the city water supply failed. Luckily, La Tour had had a cistern built, which enabled the fire to be put out. Locals teased her about constructing a cistern when she had city water, but without the cistern, the fire would have burned down the house. It is not known how many works of art were lost in the fire.
Browncliff Lane.
La Tour and her husband in the 1960s, Carl McCann, designed and built a "dream house" on North Browncliff Lane in Bloomington, Indiana. It was completed in 1968. Whereas her three previous homes had been built and operated on very limited funds, this final home was lavishly funded by McCann. Ca. 1970, La Tour and McCann also spent winters in Green Valley, Arizona.
Partners, family and daughter.
Siblings.
Onya had a number of siblings, including the two mentioned here.
Daughter.
Manya La Tour was born ca. 1926 on the homestead near Spokane, Washington. Later, they lived in California. When Manya was 8 1/2 (1934), Onya left her at a Catholic boarding school for poor children, in Paris, France. Onya made little or no contact with Manya at this school, and Manya felt abandoned. After a year in the school, Manya's Great Aunt Eleanor Kellock settled the account at the school for $900 ($16,500 in 2018 dollars), and took Manya home. Manya graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1943. Manya and her mother had a difficult relationship, and Manya left home at age 16.
Partners.
Dates are approximate.
Decline and Death.
In 1972, with failing health, La Tour donated her remaining art collection (over 100 works) and papers to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Near the end of her life, La Tour developed Parkinson's disease, and had cataracts that rendered her blind. Carl McCann had a stroke and died in January, 1976. La Tour died in June the same year, and was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery, Nashville, Indiana. She spent her last days in a nursing facility in Greenwood, Indiana. Towards the end, her good friend Ellen Lee, a Senior Curator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, sometimes drove La Tour to spend a few hours at St. Blue Cloud's house. La Tour deeded her property to the Roman Catholic Church, and willed funds for construction of a community center in Nashville, Indiana, which were used for a conference room in the Brown County Library.
Photographs.
In addition to the , the following photographs are available online. Where indicated, photos were taken by Frank Hohenberger.
Art Portraits.
Art Portraits of Onya La Tour.
La Tour has been called "the most painted woman of her time". The following list favors portraits with likeness to La Tour, omitting some with little resemblance.
Exhibitions.
This list of exhibitions of La Tour's collection is likely far from complete.