Leila McConnell

Artist statement:

"I was born in Los Angeles, California, moved to Houston at age six, and went to the public schools and then to Rice at age sixteen.

At Rice, in the Architecture Department (there was no art department at that time) James Chillman had the greatest influence on me as to my sense of design, proportion, and the ability to see. I had freehand drawing, design, watercolor and art and architectural history from him.

As a fifth year student I started taking classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, and continued there after finishing at Rice. Having had a very strong academic training, which I wouldn't take anything for, my earliest paintings and drawings (oils and pastels) were very realistic. They were mostly still-lifes, figure studies and portraits.

In 1949 I went to The California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco for the summer term. One of the guest teachers was Mark Rothko whom I had a class from. This was the beginning of a change from realism.

Sometime after this I did an imaginary girl in watercolor, which made me realize that I did have an imagination.

In 1960 on a trip to Europe the beautiful colored stucco buildings of Italy caused a change in my paintings. The colors became soft, blended and sometimes misty and I called them sky paintings because there was usually a sun or moon or both in them.

Some time after that I started to do imaginary moon faces.

About 1976 I started doing paper collages. They were small and great fun to do. And they in turn changed my paintings. Mixed in with some mistiness there were some hard edges, and the compositions became symmetrical.

I am still doing what I call sky paintings."

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· Houston Annual: Materials Prize 1954

. 1954 Materials Prize, Stella, oil

· 1949–51 24th–26th Annual Exhibition of Work by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

· 1951 13th Annual Exhibition of Texas Painting and Sculpture 1951–1952, circulated: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas

· DuBose Gallery, Houston, Texas

· Leslie Muth Gallery, Houston, Texas

· 1962–63 Museum School Faculty Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

· 1986 Leila McConnell: Collage to Canvas—New Works of Paper & Paintings, Plain Folk Gallery, Houston, Texas

· 2004 A Selection of Art Made in Houston 1950-1965, Brazos Projects, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, Texas

· 2004–05 Rice Institute and the Visual Arts in Houston: 1900–1960, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, Texas

· 2006 Houston Art in Houston Collections: Works from 1900 to 1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, Texas

· 2006–07 Of This Vast State: Women Artists of Texas , 1900–1960, Women’s Museum, Dallas, Texas

· 2007 Timeless: A Retrospective of Selected Women Artists of Texas, 1940 to Present, David Dike Fine Art, Dallas, Texas; William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas; Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas

· 2007–08 Urban Texas: Changing Images of an Evolving State, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas

· 2008 Founders of Houston Art: Thirty Artists Who Led the Way, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2009 Back to the Future: Elements of “Modern” in Mid-Century Texas Art, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2009 Leila McConnell and Henri Gadbois: Side by Side, O’Kane Gallery, University of Houston/Downtown, Houston, Texas

· 2010 Third Anniversary Show: A Tribute to Houston Artists, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2010 Pioneering Women: Three Modernists in Houston—Dorothy Hood, Leila McConnell, Stella Sullivan, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2010 The Presence of Light: Sky and Light in the Texas Landscape, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2010 Texas Collages: A Tribute to Kurt Schwitters, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2011 Southeast Texas Art: Cross-Currents and Influences, 1925–1965, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Texas

· 2011 Lone Star Modernism: A Celebration of Mid-Century Texas Art, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2011 Portrait of Houston: 1900–2011, Alliance Gallery, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, Texas (catalogue)

· 2011 Breakthrough: Sixty Years of Texas Abstraction, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2012 A Survey of Texas Modernists, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2013 A Tribute to Texas Rivers, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2013 Rhythms of Modernism, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2013 Summer Encore Exhibition, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, Texas

· 2014 Houston Founders at City Hall Art Exhibition, City Hall, Houston, Texas

· 2014 A New Visual Vocabulary: Developments in Texas Modernism 1935-1965, One Allen Center, Lobby Gallery, Houston, Texas

· 2015 Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas (catalogue)

Menil Collection, Houston, Texas

Old Jail House Art Center, Albany, Texas

Awards & Memberships

Selected Exhibitions

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