Jessie Beard Rickly

In 1994, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reflected on the legacy of Jessie Beard Rickly as “A Woman Ahead of her Time” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 24, 1994). A passionate artist and tireless worker, Rickly possessed a determination and drive that allowed her to defy the gender expectations of her time and mobilize like-minded artists around her.

Rickly was born in 1895 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 200 miles south of St. Louis, and attended High School in nearby Leeper, Missouri. At the age of eighteen, as soon as her parents would allow, she struck out on her own and moved to St. Louis. She studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts under Edmund Wuerpel and Oscar Berninghaus. She was a member of Shikari, an honorary sorority consisting of artists who attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and founded by Rickly’s close friend, Aimee Schweig. She also studied at Harvard and received a summer scholarship for her studies there.

Rickly pushed against the widespread idea at the time that professional art was not suitable for women. She married Francis Rickly in 1922, and rigorously balanced the expectations of home life with her passion for art, describing herself as “a painter who keeps house, not a housekeeper who paints” (Kerr & Dick, An American Art Colony, 55). She dedicated long hours to her work and became deeply absorbed in whatever she was working on. People close to Rickly noted that she would become “aloof” and “inaccessible” when she was working on a painting (Kerr & Dick, An American Art Colony, 55).

In 1932, Rickly was key in founding the Ste. Genevieve Artists’ Colony, along with fellow artists Aimee Schweig and Bernard Peters. Art colonies had become staples of regionalist artist communities around that time and began appearing throughout the United States, typically in scenic locations outside of urban centers. Rickly spent previous summers at the Provincetown Art Colony in Massachusetts along with Schweig and her daughter, Martyl, and studied under Charles Hawthorne there.

The Ste. Genevieve colony had similar aims of providing space for experimentation, dialog between like-minded artists, and a forum to display work. However, unlike other art colonies, the artists of Ste. Genevieve were highly individual in style, aligning with Rickly’s independent streak. The colony’s impressive roster included prominent Missouri artists such as Thomas Hart Benton, Joe Jones, and Joseph Paul Vorst. In 1934, Rickly and Schweig started a summer art school associated with the colony, which operated out of the Stanton Residence at 202 Merchant Street.

Rickly had powerful convictions and was a strong political voice in the art community. She founded the organization The New Hats (a playful response to the common idiom, “old hat”), whose members sought to promote contemporary art and regionalism in St. Louis. Rickly was also a close associate of St. Louis artist Mabel Meeker Edsall, and the two put on multiple joint exhibitions, often with political themes. In 1944, their exhibition The Battlecry of Freedom, which ran at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild from March 20 through April 10, became the subject of newspaper headlines when twelve canvases were removed by the Guild’s Board of Directors for objectionable content. The Board’s decision raised questions regarding censorship in the arts, and many in the St. Louis community expressed support for Rickly and Edsall. The pair later returned to the St. Louis Artists’ Guild for their 1951 exhibition, Forever Free.

In 1939, Rickly and her husband moved from their home on Pershing Ave. to the nearby suburb of Webster Groves, joining a close-knit community of artists there. Rickly continued her teaching activities, giving linoleum block-printing (linocut) demonstrations in University City, and teaching for a summer at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts in 1951.

Rickly remained in Webster Groves until her death in 1975. Her body was willed to the Washington University School of Medicine upon her death.