Elizabeth Tracy Montminy

Photo of Elizabeth Tracy Montminy
Mrs. Pierre Montminy, Tracy Montminy
1911 -1992
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BORN
June 5, 1911
Boston, Massachusetts
DIED
October 23, 1992
Columbia, Missouri
EDUCATION
Art Students League
New York, New York
Radcliffe College
Cambridge, Massachusetts
GENDER
RACE / ETHNICITY
OCCUPATION
Faculty

Elizabeth Tracy Montminy was born on June 5, 1911, in Boston, Massachusetts. She started practicing art before and during her teenage years by illustrating scenes from fairy tales through paintings and line drawings. After graduating from high school, she studied art at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and received her bachelor’s of art degree in 1933. She then studied at the Art Students League in New York City with Rico Lebrun from 1934-1935. As she progressed in her career, one could see that her artwork was influenced by Abstract Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism.

Montminy was known for her murals and made several for the Work Projects Administration during the 1930s and early 1940s. Her themes for her WPA murals ranged from the history of Native Americans and English settlers, to workers constructing railroads. Her murals include:  Founding of Sagus (Sagus Town Hall, Sagus, Massachusetts, 1936), The Suffolk Resolves: Oppression and Revolt in the Colonies (Milton, Massachusetts, 1939), Chicago, Railroad Center of the Nation (Downers Grove, Illinois, 1940), and Bathers (Kennebunkport, Maine, 1941). Her Kennebunkport mural caused a controversy over the subject, a beach scene, and was removed from the post office by an act of Congress and replaced with a mural of clipper ships painted by Gordon Grant.

In 1940, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of her work on WPA murals. Later in life she made murals for the city of Columbia, Missouri, that depicted life in downtown Columbia.

Elizabeth Tracy married Pierre Montminy, a French-Canadian artist, in 1941, and then used the name Tracy Montminy. She taught art at the University of Missouri, Columbia, from 1948 to 1981, and was very dedicated to her students, inviting artists to speak and influencing many of her students’ artistic careers. She was a visiting lecturer at the American University of Beirut, 1963-1964.

Elizabeth Tracy Montminy died on October 23, 1992, in Columbia.

Note

Her estate was bequeathed as an endowment to the Boone County Historical Society in Columbia, Missouri, that allowed the society to build a gallery, Montminy Art Gallery, to care for her and her husband’s works (murals, oil paintings, pen and ink drawings, and sketches) along with other regional artists’ works.

References

Artist clippings file is available at:

Bibliography

Select Sources

Sam Blain, “Research on Missouri Artists,” five binders of documented Missouri artists.

Tracy Montminy papers, 1936-1989. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

“Artist: Elizabeth Tracy,” The Living New Deal, accessed October 28, 2021, https://livingnewdeal.org/artists/elizabeth-tracy/.

“Tracy Montminy,” Find A Grave, accessed October 28, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79948091/tracy-montminy.

“Montminy, Tracy,” in Les Krantz, ed., American Artists: An Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Americans (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985), 224.

Karal Ann Marling, Wall to Wall America: Post Office Murals in the Great Depression (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 272-278.

Charles Movalli, “Tracy Montminy: Myth and Form,” American Artist (March 1976): 46-51, 70-71.

“Tracy Montminy,” Art News, 66, no. 2 (April 1967): 14.

“Tracy, Elizabeth,” in Dorothy B. Gilbert, ed., Who’s Who in American Art (New York: R.R. Bowker Company, 1953), 426.

“Tracy, Elizabeth,” in Dorothy B. Gilbert, ed., Who’s Who in American Art (Washington: American Federation of Arts, 1947), 470.


Core Reference Sources

Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).

askART (database), askART, https://www.askart.com/.

Anita Jacobsen, Jacobsen's Biographical Index of American Artists (Carrollton: A.J. Publications, 2002).

Image Credits

Artwork

Elizabeth Tracy Montminy, The Suffolk Resolves–Oppression and Revolt in the Colonies, 1939.

WPA Mural.

Located in the Post Office in Milton, Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Tracy Montminy, Chicago, Railroad Center of the Nation, 1940.

WPA Mural.

Located in the Post Office in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Portrait of Artist

Unknown, Elizabeth Tracy Montminy, circa 1940s.

Photograph.

Private Collection

Contributors

Roberta Wagener, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Artist Record Published

Published on November 9, 2021

Learn more

References

Artist clippings file is available at:

Bibliography

Select Sources

Sam Blain, “Research on Missouri Artists,” five binders of documented Missouri artists.

Tracy Montminy papers, 1936-1989. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

“Artist: Elizabeth Tracy,” The Living New Deal, accessed October 28, 2021, https://livingnewdeal.org/artists/elizabeth-tracy/.

“Tracy Montminy,” Find A Grave, accessed October 28, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79948091/tracy-montminy.

“Montminy, Tracy,” in Les Krantz, ed., American Artists: An Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporary Americans (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985), 224.

Karal Ann Marling, Wall to Wall America: Post Office Murals in the Great Depression (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 272-278.

Charles Movalli, “Tracy Montminy: Myth and Form,” American Artist (March 1976): 46-51, 70-71.

“Tracy Montminy,” Art News, 66, no. 2 (April 1967): 14.

“Tracy, Elizabeth,” in Dorothy B. Gilbert, ed., Who’s Who in American Art (New York: R.R. Bowker Company, 1953), 426.

“Tracy, Elizabeth,” in Dorothy B. Gilbert, ed., Who’s Who in American Art (Washington: American Federation of Arts, 1947), 470.


Core Reference Sources

Peter H. Falk, et. al, Who was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America (Madison: Sound View Press, 1999).

askART (database), askART, https://www.askart.com/.

Anita Jacobsen, Jacobsen's Biographical Index of American Artists (Carrollton: A.J. Publications, 2002).

Contributors

Roberta Wagener, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Artist Record Published

Published on November 9, 2021

Updated on None

Citation

Wagener, Roberta. "Elizabeth Tracy Montminy." In Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951. Kansas City: The Kansas City Art Institute and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; St. Louis: The St. Louis Public Library, 2021,https://doi.org/10.37764/5776.