Houston Ellis Chandler

Houston Ellis Chandler (1914-2015) sought “the simplicity that brings out the most powerful line of expression.” As a sculptor, printmaker, painter and teacher, his work reflected both his personality and the life he lived: multi-faceted, full of daring ambition and boundless vitality.

Chandler was born on February 11, 1914, in St. Louis, Missouri. At Vashon High School, “Keg” excelled in football and track and field, but he also thrived in the arts, including a student performance in the title role of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, noted for his “resonant baritone.” As an undergraduate English major at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, Chandler was a star athlete, lettering in basketball, football and track. He graduated in 1937. For the next several years, he worked as a teacher and athletics coach at Hubbard High School in Sedalia, Missouri.

In 1942, Chandler enlisted in the Army, where he was stationed in Texas as a warrant officer. Chandler married Sara Turner, a teacher, in 1943. He served in the Army until 1946. While in Europe during World War II, Chandler was inspired by the art and sculpture he saw in Germany, Belgium and France, at the Louvre, and the cathedrals of Reims, Amiens and Notre Dame. Coming home, “I knew I had to create in the field of art,” he said.

Chandler pursued postgraduate work in sculpture at the Sate University of Iowa, where he completed a master's of art in 1946, before joining the faculty and becoming just the second black scholar to complete a master's of fine arts there a year later. In 1947, Chandler and his wife returned to their hometown, St. Louis. Back at Vashon High School, Chandler taught and coached athletics for St. Louis Public Schools for 42 years.

In 1948, Chandler served as the summer director of the People’s Art Center. Working from his home studio in St. Louis, he exhibited at Atlanta University (1947), the City Art Museum (1949), the Iowa State Fair, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Urban League, and the St. Louis Artists' Guild, winning several awards. He also taught night classes in ceramics at his local YMCA.

Chandler enjoyed the raw physicality of sculpting in wood, stone, lead, brass and ceramics. In his work, Chandler sought to prove Henry Moore’s maxim, that the “power of expression transcends the beauty of expression.” “Resistance of the material is not itself a hindrance,” he explained. “On the contrary, it creates fertile energy in one’s mind.” Rather than imitating beauty in naturalism, Chandler endeavored instead to “create beauty in his own image.”

Houston Chandler died in St. Louis on February 1, 2015, at the age of 100. He is interred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.