Transcript
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Jane Blaffer Owen on March 12, 1980. The interview took place in Houston, Texas, and was conducted by Sandra Curtis Levy for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The original transcript was edited. In 2024 the Archives retranscribed the original audio and attempted to create a verbatim transcript. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Additional information from the original transcript has been added in brackets and given an –Ed. attribution
Interview
[00:00:19.68]
SANDRA CURTIS: This is March 12, 1980, and I'm Sandra Curtis in the home of Jane Blaffer Owen, her home on 300 Pine Road in Houston—
[00:00:29.25]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And Kenneth.
[00:00:30.06]
SANDRA CURTIS: And Kenneth D. Owen, too. And we thought today we would begin our discussion about the history of the Blaffer family, their many accomplishments and achievements in Houston and Texas. I thought we might start—you'd give us sort of a short history of the beginnings of your family's interest in the arts, and their support of the arts. We could sort of start from there. Wasn't it your mother who sort of was the originator, or did it start even before your mother?
[00:01:09.22]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: My mother was an art lover from the day she was born in a small Texas town called Lampasas. Her English father and Scottish mother had moved there. Grandfather Campbell had his offices in Houston in those days because he told his family that it was an alligator swamp, and not fit to bring up a family. And he commuted from this beautiful hill town, which reminded him of Scotland. As you may recall, many Scots and Englishmen settled in San Antonio because it was hillier than Houston and drier, and felt it was a good place to bring up their cattle and their children.
[00:02:17.28]
SANDRA CURTIS: How did they commute?
[00:02:18.77]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: By train. There was an overnight train from (you see how my tongue switches to "P" instead of "T") overnight train from Houston to Lampasas. He'd spend, like an English gentleman, the long weekends in the country and then come to the Texas company building here. When it was dismantled, incidentally, I claimed the escutcheon above the front door, which had been carved in Italy—two lovely figures holding the emblem Texas Company, and above that a beautiful star. I claimed that. Well, I bought it from the marble junkyard. [Laughs.]
[00:03:10.76]
SANDRA CURTIS: What did you do with it?
[00:03:11.63]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Took it with me to my adopted home, which was New Harmony, Indiana, and made a bench of it—
[00:03:18.78]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic.
[00:03:19.06]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —in my garden. So my Texas star followed me to Indiana. But grandfather Campbell came from an aristocratic English family. He was first cousin to Sir Thomas Campbell, the poet. So, Mother grew up with poetry quoted in her home, and art continually discussed. And Grandfather Campbell was an early director of the Texas Company and was just beginning to be an affluent person before he died. And although they were never poor, the Texas Company stock, as everyone knows, grew in importance and value. So, the collection, which he would have made had he lived, Mother began when she married my father. And it was interesting that Grandfather Campbell introduced Mother to her husband. They were both at Fiddletop [ph] in 1901—
[00:04:34.91]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic.
[00:04:35.63]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —as so many enterprising young people were. One of Grandfather Campbell's earliest associates there was Burke Roche, who was the younger brother of the Earl of Roche. He was an early pioneer, also, and later became successful. There were all sorts and conditions of men who were attracted to the oil boom, and my grandfather and my father, happily, were both gentlemen. Daddy read The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire in his tent at night while other people were gambling and losing and making fortunes.
[00:05:33.05]
SANDRA CURTIS: No wonder your grandfather chose him.
[00:05:35.57]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. He did. He felt that Lee Blaffer was an eminently suitable man to bring home to meet his beautiful daughter, Sarah. And I have many reasons for loving Grandfather Campbell, but that is one of the foremost because of having introduced Mummy to my father.
[00:06:02.30]
SANDRA CURTIS: How long after they were introduced did they get married?
[00:06:04.61]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, they were married in the early—they met, I think, at least two years before. It might have been in 1907, because they were married April 22, 1909. And my favorite photograph of Mother is taken on board the President Lincoln when they sailed for Europe. Daddy, having been brought up in New Orleans, had been before—Europe. He was well acquainted with Europe, particularly France, where he had cousins, and so he had to take his bride to introduce her to Paris. That was his first mission. And I found my mother's diary—
[00:06:51.60]
SANDRA CURTIS: Oh, how wonderful.
[00:06:52.44]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —written on her wedding trip. And it was, of course, the usual—I wish I had it in my hand now. My secretary has it safely put away. But the gist of it was museums, cathedrals, beautiful sights, but with emphasis on the museums, which certainly she had not seen in Lampasas or Houston. Because mother always said the South had been set back a hundred years with the Civil War.
But she had gone to music school in Boston, where she was a frequent visitor to Fenway Court, which was the Isabella Gardner Museum, created by what Boston considered a very eccentric woman. And today, we would say "far out." But because Isabella Gardner was such a collector, and farsighted, she is remembered, when many of her more popular contemporaries [laughs] were not ever remembered again, or spoken of very frequently. So I think between these three influences, her father's beautiful taste and background, her going to Boston to school and visiting the museums there, especially Fenway Court, and then being taken to Europe on her wedding trip, these were the three principal—
[00:08:44.33]
SANDRA CURTIS: Influences.
[00:08:44.62]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —influences on her later collecting.
[00:08:49.58]
SANDRA CURTIS: We were speaking of the major influences in your mother's aesthetic—
[00:08:57.29]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Early life.
[00:08:57.89]
SANDRA CURTIS: Early life.
[00:08:58.94]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And the reason we have to go into these influences, is for me to assure you that Mother collected because she couldn't help collecting. It was in her blood. It was in her character to love beauty. As a young girl in her bedroom in Lampasas, which was a lovely, comfortable room in a lovely Southern house—but there was no money for fine paintings. So Mother would take a candle at night and move it across the wall and make images. And also, it made her room more beautiful.
[00:09:51.01]
And Mother was convent-bred. And in those days, they did not teach art in convents or schools. Well, I didn't have the art advantages as a young girl growing up in Houston that my children and grandchildren are now receiving. This country has made great strides in the last 40 years in art instruction. And of course, a genteel young lady does watercoloring, and she did, and she studied music. Mother had a love of beauty, which reflected in all of her environment in later life in the furnishings of her house, and in the clothes she selected. I make this emphasis because I know of many collections that were put together by advisors to sometimes rough diamonds. And they collected because they felt it was the social thing to do. But this was the last reason in Mother's mind to surround herself with beauty. It was a spiritual search.
[00:11:27.02]
SANDRA CURTIS: Did your father—
[00:11:28.55]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: My father approved everything Mother did. [Laughs.] He was a very busy man following the traditions of his family, which were commerce and the humanities. As I believe I mentioned a few days ago, the house in which he was born in New Orleans has recently been restored by my daughter and son-in-law. And it's an example of a very fine house, 1869.
[00:12:07.64]
But the important part of it to me was that Societies for the Cruelty of Prevention to Children and to Animals were founded in this house. And his unmarried sister, Alva Blaffer, spent her life in combating cruelty to children and to animals, particularly in Spain—no, I'm sorry, in Mexico. She was invited to Spain to receive an award from the Queen for humanitarian work there. Her accomplishments are a matter of record.
[00:12:48.85]
SANDRA CURTIS: How fascinating. These were the first societies for the prevention of [cruelty –ed.]—
[00:12:51.94]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: In the South.
[00:12:52.87]
SANDRA CURTIS: In the South.
[00:12:54.25]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And so this house is being made into a museum with memorabilia of the family.
[00:13:03.29]
SANDRA CURTIS: How exciting.
[00:13:06.74]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: The humanitarian thrust from my father's family found expression in the way Daddy gave social—in his social consciousness as a company president. He was one of the founders of the Humble Oil Company. For many years, he was the President, and he was continually improving the conditions of the employees. He established the stock plan so that every employee would own stock, and thereby take a personal interest in the fortunes of the company. And he began recreation centers in Baytown, and was continually interested in improving social conditions for the Humble company.
[00:14:07.82]
SANDRA CURTIS: It's a nice merger, then, of humanism, and—
[00:14:10.25]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: It was a merger. And Daddy said, "I'm going to leave all the art to my beloved Sadie." So—you have other questions? I was thinking more of the past than the present.
[00:14:35.24]
SANDRA CURTIS: When did it—so your mother's collection—
[00:14:38.93]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: In the earliest years, in the '20s, she bought George Inness. She bought American painters, and was a backer of the well known portrait painter Wayman Adams, who did portraits of all the members of her family, and unfortunately, three of me, because Mother loved having me pose as much as I disliked it. But anyway, as we were born, as our children were born, she had portraits painted of her grandchildren as well.
[00:15:19.34]
SANDRA CURTIS: How many children in your family?
[00:15:21.02]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: There were four, and then she had 15 grandchildren.
[00:15:26.18]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic.
[00:15:27.12]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And a good many of them were painted by Wayman Adams. And before that, a man in the East called Murray Bewley had done some paintings of my brother and sister Titi [Princess Furstenberg –Ed.], and myself.
[00:15:48.35]
SANDRA CURTIS: So did she predominantly, then, collect portraits at this time?
[00:15:51.98]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: No. She collected portraits of her family at this time. [Cross talk.] And it's interesting. Her early interest in portraiture should go into the collection of portraits by great masters, such as a painting of Dr. Schiefler by Edvard Munch.
[00:16:21.74]
SANDRA CURTIS: And in the '30s?
[00:16:24.98]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And in the '30s, one of her first purchases was the portrait of Madame Cézanne, and then there was a portrait of—several Modigliani portraits. Also, a bronze head, and the "Portrait of a Young Boy," by Soutine, which is in the museum.
[00:16:59.19]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right.
[00:17:02.37]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: She didn't stay with landscapes long. She became far more interested in portraiture, first of her own family, and then of people she didn't know, because of the character in the faces. And she was a keen judge of character, incidentally, and had a penetrating understanding of other human beings. She could have been a very good portrait painter herself. I remember with Uncle Wayman Adams, he said many times, "Sadie, come help me with this portrait," whether it was one of her own children or that of a friend. "I'm having some problems with the mouth, or the light on the cheeks." And Mother's corrections were solicited and very often accepted.
[00:17:56.82]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic. What happened to the portraits? Some of them are obviously now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
[00:18:08.24]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. And then there was one of a Frau Blau, which was given to me, and which I've since sold. No, no. Frau Moll— Greta Moll. It was a portrait, a Matisse portrait of Greta Moll.
[00:18:28.42]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic.
[00:18:31.69]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And then a portrait of one of Picasso's wives, which my sister has in Paris.
[00:18:40.63]
SANDRA CURTIS: By Picasso?
[00:18:41.50]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. I hadn't thought of this, but from her initial interest in family portraits, she became interested in portraits by great masters. I've never said that in so many words, but discussing it with you brings it out, that there is continuity.
[00:19:03.75]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. In the way she saw. And she certainly must have had a terrific eye to have been collecting this sort of portraiture when she was collecting it. Because at the time, it was a very revolutionary type painting, and often not easily acceptable by a lot of people. So her eye must have been extremely sophisticated.
[00:19:25.83]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Her eye was always accurate. Of course, she had one or two bums. Who doesn't? There was a portrait of a Spanish gentleman by Goya, which turned out not to be.
[00:19:46.73]
SANDRA CURTIS: Goya?
[00:19:48.41]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: It was a beautiful portrait. That's the only time I've known her to be mistaken. And I mean, I want to say it, because no one's infallible.
[00:19:57.47]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right.
[00:20:02.00]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Hello, Kenneth. Kenneth, have a cup of tea.
[Recorder stops; restarts.]
[00:20:11.57]
SANDRA CURTIS: And your mother's collecting of these portraits—was she collecting them then just to hang in her home?
[00:20:17.90]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. They appealed to her. And as you know later, her wishes were that the portraits go—some of them were given, of course, to her children. And I have—oh, wait a minute. I meant to have these papers under hand. I'm so sorry. But the form—those that were given to University of Houston—in which we subsequently bought back from the University of Houston because there wasn't room to hang them. Mother wanted above all, for young people to have advantages which she was denied growing up. And therefore, she wished that her foundation would enlarge our collection to form several categories.
[00:21:25.22]
SANDRA CURTIS: Let's go back to the beginning of the foundation. The original idea—she conceived of a foundation to take care of the art. I mean, when was the foundation—when did it come into the picture?
[00:21:35.61]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Oh, it was in her mind a long time. I don't have the foundation papers right under hand. But certainly, it was started before the end of her long life. I would say in the '60s. And she wanted it to be a teaching collection and a traveling collection that went beyond her personal taste. Everyone knows what she chose herself to delight her eye, and these were all very fine paintings, which only increased in value. But Mother bought them when they were not that valuable. She bought them because she saw in them something of importance and that related to her needs.
[00:22:29.97]
But the collection as it stands today is a witness to the impersonal approach that Mother grew toward as she matured. She knew that children in small towns, for instance, didn't have anything very old. And the witness of that—the best example I can give you of the correctness of her decision to form an Old Master collection was in the letters of thanks which we received from schoolchildren in Longview, Texas. I may have mentioned that story to you.
[00:23:27.12]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic. Yeah.
[00:23:27.48]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Every letter from boys and girls, say, ages eight to twelve, mentioned the age of the paintings which they were seeing. They didn't know anything 500 years old existed. And it's rather a tribute to the worth of the collection that in a town as young as Longview, which may be 50 or 60 years old, these young people were brought into personal contact with paintings that dated from the 15th century.
[00:24:09.83]
SANDRA CURTIS: Incredible. How did she select these paintings?
[00:24:12.32]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, many of these were selected after her death. But she outlined the broad policy of the foundation, that it should collect works of art which ranged from the earliest Renaissance through to the present. As you know, there's the Old Master collection. There's the Abstract Expressionist. There's the golden years of Flemish painting, 16th and 17th century. There is Abstract Expressionist. I wish I had all the catalogs with me.
[00:25:01.44]
SANDRA CURTIS: I'll get some, and I'll certainly add it to the typed script.
[00:25:05.22]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Will you, please?
[00:25:06.00]
SANDRA CURTIS: Of course.
[00:25:06.66]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Because that will—
[00:25:08.16]
SANDRA CURTIS: Because I'm only aware of the three—the Abstract Expressionists, the golden age of painting, 16th, 17th century Dutch, Flemish, and German, and the great masters, the Old Masters.
[00:25:18.63]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. There are several more catalogs which are not under my fingertips now.
[00:25:25.68]
SANDRA CURTIS: Okay. I'll call and get them.
[00:25:33.90]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: I know that Mother's spirit rejoices in knowing that towns throughout Texas—
[00:25:41.97]
SANDRA CURTIS: These travel constantly, these exhibitions?
[00:25:44.37]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. Sometimes, they're placed in schools, in auditoriums. The only caution is that there must be security.
[00:25:59.16]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right.
[00:26:00.21]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And if the school can guarantee security and the proper guarding, then the collection will go there.
[00:26:11.13]
SANDRA CURTIS: Fantastic. And this is in Texas?
[00:26:13.71]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: In Texas. There's also an arrangement where if a museum outside of Texas—this is a recent codicil, so to speak, to the original bylaws. If a museum can send an equivalent exhibit to Houston, then the collection can exchange with another museum. For instance, an arrangement is being made now with the Evansville Museum of Fine Arts. They are lending us some western— I think it's an Oriental art. They have a very strong Oriental art department. And we're sending them the Old Master show to be shown in December. This is in the Midwest again, which does not have a strong collection of Renaissance paintings. Mother never wants to send coals to Newcastle. And as for the quality of the works, if Mother's collection or the foundation were to purchase a Rembrandt, should it be available, it would cost so much that there would be no other paintings available for other categories.
[00:27:50.22]
SANDRA CURTIS: And then the security in the—
[Cross talk.]
[00:27:51.29]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yeah. Mother would both rather have the students see fine examples of the pupils of Rembrandt, how he influenced several generations of painters. And of his pupils, we tried to select the very finest examples.
[00:28:12.33]
SANDRA CURTIS: You have. They're beautiful.
[00:28:19.02]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: So, we do have the original Goya etchings, as you know, "The Disasters of War," which are traveling. And when I see them, I'm reminded of other violent protest against war in contemporary terms, whether it's Larry Rivers or whether it's Ossorio, or other people reacting against the horrors of war.
[00:28:56.61]
SANDRA CURTIS: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. It's hard to get past the Goya horrors of war. I think they really do bring it home to everyone who sees.
[00:29:01.77]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: They're very timely, I think.
[00:29:03.96]
SANDRA CURTIS: Timeless, too.
[00:29:04.77]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: I saw the work of a man called Bryce in New York recently, and his violent protest against war was to create in the first floor of the Guggenheim Museum—the round circle there as you enter—of three empty bunkers with a cannon that's shooting a man's head because we've run out of ammunition. And the machines for communication within the bunkers have been bombed, and there's no light at all. And in the background, a piano, which is wrapped in a cloth so that there's no sound for the piano because one doesn't dare make a sound, to attract the attention of the enemy, all music muffled. The Goya etchings are in that category of protest.
[00:30:15.39]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. Very strong statements. I know I've watched people, and children especially, look at the Goya etchings, and they still arouse such strong feelings and reactions that it just exemplifies their timelessness and their timeliness.
[00:30:33.66]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes.
[00:30:35.22]
SANDRA CURTIS: Could you explain to me—now, when the foundation was set up, the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, what was its connection with the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston?
[00:30:50.72]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Oh. It was to be and still is, a place for Mother's opening exhibits to be shown. Last year, the Vienna Moderne was exhibited in connection with the Cooper Hewitt in New York. Our art advisor Spencer Samuels, early in this decade felt the need for exposing I to the secessionist period of Viennese painting, music, and furniture, which was very little known in this country because the Austrians don't know how to blow their own trumpets. The French do.
[00:31:42.86]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. For sure, they do.
[00:31:44.66]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: The workmanship and ingenuity—if you saw it at Vienna Moderne—
[00:31:49.31]
SANDRA CURTIS: I did.
[00:31:49.64]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —was outstanding. We ran into a hassle with the Museum of Modern Art, who had planned a similar exhibit to open their new building a few years hence. And it came out in the papers. I'm not divulging any secrets. Jan Adelman, who was a roving curator employed by Mother's foundation to go to Vienna and do research, had every door opened very quickly. The Viennese were extremely eager to have this show brought over. And then just as suddenly, the doors were shut.
[00:32:37.65]
SANDRA CURTIS: For Pete's sakes.
[00:32:38.07]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And it was through the enormous power of the Museum of Modern Art. And it read like a whodunit story. Jan Adelman had to call upon the Vice President of the United States. And Mr. Mondale wrote the Viennese galleries that he and his wife wanted this exhibit to take place. And little David went over Goliath.
[00:33:14.53]
SANDRA CURTIS: Good.
[00:33:15.70]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And I think there was a lot of rejoicing over that. And the Cooper Hewitt has been in existence long before the Museum of Modern Art was ever thought of.
[00:33:25.69]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. Indeed.
[00:33:28.51]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And the Smithsonian. So together with the Smithsonian and the Cooper Hewitt, the joint sponsors of this Vienna Moderne, we won the right to carry out our idea, which we did not derive from the Museum of Modern Art.
[00:33:54.13]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right.
[00:33:54.52]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: They have no monopolies because they're so rich. They have no monopoly on creativity—
[00:34:00.64]
SANDRA CURTIS: Good ideas.
[00:34:00.76]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: —or good ideas. But there was great rejoicing in older institutions, and with our foundation and in Houston over that victory.
[00:34:14.35]
SANDRA CURTIS: I should say.
[00:34:16.45]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: They, of course, will have a much more expensive exhibit, and they'll bring over many more paintings of Klimt and other Viennese painters of that period. In fact, they prevented us from bringing the paintings, so there was one clause. But you go back to our connection with the University of Houston. I've had Houston openings there, of course. We decided last year— the Trustees, that since there was no room or gallery space which had originally been envisioned for hanging Mother's permanent—for the permanent collection, it seemed a pity to have them stored.
[00:35:13.18]
As the collection grew, there was even less storage space, and what they needed was more room for maintenance of the gallery, more funding for the maintenance of the gallery. So Chancellor Munitz—this was before the new president came in—and Dr. Hoffman and our Trustees made a very amicable arrangement whereby we would have purchased back the paintings which Mother had given the University so that we would have sole autonomy over them. And the museum and the gallery would have funding to continue with exhibits or its building program or whatever, because we did not specify how that money was going to be used.
So eventually, way down the road toward the future, there's several possibilities. I, for one, would like—this is just my personal opinion. I would like to see the collection in Austin, which is our capital, and in the Hill Country where my mother was born, and where there isn't a teaching collection, but a great deal of building and funds already available.
[00:36:51.10]
SANDRA CURTIS: And a large student body.
[00:36:52.57]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And a student body, which would be similar to Mother's interest in the University of Houston where there is at present no plan for a museum that could take care of the collection. But Mother preferred the paintings to be available to students who were not dragged to a museum on a bus, but would go in on their own accord and brush shoulders with it. And I'm not saying that this is what will happen. But I, for one, would cast my vote for Austin.
[00:37:29.50]
SANDRA CURTIS: And then would that mean that the exhibitions wouldn't travel the state anymore, or they would still travel and then just have a permanent home?
[00:37:37.45]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, that depends. I can't speak that far ahead. I mean, if you give them that, perhaps you no longer have—maybe they'd be doing a better service. Wherever they would be doing the most service. Because Austin, after all, is far more centrally located than Houston and more approachable to many small towns. And the Richler Gallery is, as you know, in the Harry Ransom building. There isn't any more room to hang paintings in the exhibition hall on the second floor.
[00:38:26.81]
SANDRA CURTIS: Which isn't very large.
[00:38:28.16]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Which isn't very large. I hope you don't find me critical.
[00:38:34.57]
SANDRA CURTIS: No, no, no. No. The facts are facts.
[00:38:37.78]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: You ask me questions in the future, and these are some of the possibilities.
[00:38:42.88]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. So the Blaffer Gallery as it is at the University of Houston is not directly connected, then, to the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation.
[00:38:52.57]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: No. We're not tied to it. They wish to honor Mother for all she did to foster art there, and for the paintings which she had already given. And now that instead of the paintings, they have the monetary value, which makes sense, because they need the money, and they didn't have a space large enough to accommodate them. And we've had only good relations with them, and we can hope to continue good relations.
[00:39:27.58]
SANDRA CURTIS: I'm sure you will. Your mother's involvement, then, sort of had its focus ultimately in her foundation and the teaching collection that would circulate all through Texas—
[00:39:43.66]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes.
[00:39:43.78]
SANDRA CURTIS: —and be available to especially young people who were interested in seeing beautiful art.
[00:39:50.02]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Right.
[00:39:51.19]
SANDRA CURTIS: And so most of her collection, then, went into her foundation, except for that she gave to the children, and some of the family portraits?
[00:39:59.35]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. The family portraits have not been divided as yet, but my sisters and I—and of course, if my brother had lived—would have been those to dispose of them, to decide what is best. I know she would want the Blaffer portraits to go into the Blaffer house.
[00:40:25.66]
SANDRA CURTIS: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. In New Orleans?
[00:40:26.26]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: In New Orleans. There's no question of their final destination. But since Grandmother Campbell's house burned to the ground—the house where Mother lived in Lampasas—there's no place there. And there are Campbell nephews who bear the name who might ultimately receive them. But this is a decision that must rest with my sisters and me and not with any one person or the foundation.
[00:40:58.99]
I should have mentioned during Mother's period of collecting that she became friends with Sally and Milton Avery when they were first shown, I believe, at the Knoedler Gallery, and was so impressed that she, first of all, bought a painting of Avery's to give the Museum of Modern Art, which was the first time he'd been shown there. And then she invited them to come to her summer place in Canada, where Milton began his rooster period. He'd go down to Mother's barn every morning and do roosters. And when he emerged one day with a beautiful white rooster which was half gray and half white, I realized again our indebtedness to the artist. Of course, they're half gray and half white—the white rooster—when the light falls a certain way. But it's the artist's role to make us see more accurately.
[00:42:07.01]
SANDRA CURTIS: That's right.
[00:42:07.94]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And so Mother gave hospitality to them, and they were always—Milton was always more creative in her good company. And I'll never forget Sally, who was a delightful woman and still is, fortunately, alive. And Mother loved rearranging furniture. Mother was very fond of chairs and where they should be in a room. And Milton would go quietly painting with his easel. And then every so often, he'd say, "Oh, Sally, you and Sadie have got to stop chairing again because it's a little too noisy."
[Recorder stops; restarts.]
[00:43:01.49]
Oh, who would—
[00:43:03.41]
SANDRA CURTIS: Marthe?
[00:43:04.30]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Marthe. M-A-R-T-H-E, Marthe. Rakine, R-A-K-I-N-E. And I'll remember all the days of my life—in the afternoon light, Marthe Rakine sitting on a little stool in Mother's yellow drawing room, doing a portrait of our youngest daughter, Anne. And she would draw out her lovely long brushes, and it was almost like someone about to play a violin. And she would pull her brush across the canvas like a violinist would draw a bow. Of course, his instrument.
[00:43:51.52]
And when someone was painting for Mother, it was like hearing music for her. And I regret that she didn't paint, herself, but she certainly encouraged many other people to do so. And another one of Mother's great passions was the human eye. Since most of her pleasures came to her through her eyes, she gave generously to institutions for the blind. A chair was given recently to Baylor Medical College to help research on the human eye.
[00:44:40.13]
SANDRA CURTIS: Oh, that's wonderful. I didn't realize that.
[00:44:42.26]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Oh, yes. Mother felt that the eye was very important.
[00:44:49.45]
SANDRA CURTIS: And you, then, picked up your father's humanism, and rather than collecting art, you began things like the Seaman's Center here in Houston. Am I right?
[00:45:03.31]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. Of course, Mother was terribly interested in that, too. She gave me my first check for it.
[00:45:10.22]
SANDRA CURTIS: It's good support.
[00:45:13.00]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: She told me a story of the old days in Houston when we were living on a street called Elgin, which was then a very quiet street with a good many Southern homes. And there was a vacant lot near our house with a great billboard in front of it. And one day, Daddy was walking in the garden early one morning and saw a human form behind the billboard, and said to Mother, "I think there's a young man sleeping there using the billboard as a shield against the wind. We must invite him home."
[00:46:00.13]
So of course, they did invite him to their home and found out that he was a seaman and was a little down on his luck, and had no money to go to a hotel. So I heard that story, and Daddy said that there must be a Seaman's Center one day for such young people. And it was like Hamlet's ghost in a benign mood saying, "I will haunt you if you don't do something about it." [Laughs.] But Mother also was extremely interested in that Center and gave up her own funds for it.
[00:46:41.45]
But my sister, Princess Furstenberg, is the real collector in the family and knows far more about painting than I do. As a little boy said in New Harmony, "You like a beat-up house," and these beat-up houses were like orphans with good lineage and good brains that had been neglected and unschooled.
[00:47:08.73]
SANDRA CURTIS: What got you started in New Harmony?
[00:47:13.65]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Oh, well that was—of course, three weeks after I was married, my husband took me there as his bride. And I've written that story. It's not quite finished yet because it's hard to finish the story on New Harmony. It seems to be unending.
[00:47:30.79]
SANDRA CURTIS: Good.
[00:47:31.39]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: But I won't take your time with that now. I have loved it very faithfully since 1941 since my husband brought me there.
[00:47:40.39]
SANDRA CURTIS: Well, I'm delighted to learn that you've written, so that we can all share that with you, because I've heard such wonderful things about New Harmony.
[00:47:49.38]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, you must come.
[00:47:50.24]
SANDRA CURTIS: I will.
[00:47:50.87]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And let me know first. It lives in all three tenses of the verb "to be." We have a past, we have a present, and we have a future. And our architecture reflects that, from the early log houses through the Owen period of 1830, '40, and '50 houses, and the Civil War period—well, just about every decade of American history since 1800 is represented there.
[00:48:28.40]
SANDRA CURTIS: How exciting.
[00:48:30.47]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Which, for me, is more interesting than a town where a decade has been frozen in time.
[00:48:38.90]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. It's always, like you say—it's growing, then, forever.
[00:48:40.64]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Yes. And agriculturally, it thrills me because the land is very rich. It's what they call second bottoms, after the river has flown over and left its deposit. It's extremely fertile, and what everyone plants prospers.
[00:49:00.37]
SANDRA CURTIS: Unlike my backyard. Gumbo. [Laughs.]
[00:49:02.65]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: In Houston, you know. Gumbo, gumbo. We have heard a lot about that here. It's hard to break through without a lot of manure and compost. But we're very blessed there with the healthy soil.
[00:49:23.83]
SANDRA CURTIS: Other than your mother's collecting, and the foundation, am I forgetting something that we should put down about the history of your mother and her involvement in the arts and your personal involvement?
[00:49:44.00]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, I know that Mother never wanted our foundation funds to go for brick and mortar. She felt there'd always be buildings. In fact, she regretted that they couldn't have used Mrs. Hobby's house as part of the museum. She was Scottish enough to want to save a good building. And the Cullinan House, which Mrs. Hobby eventually bought, was sound, spacious, and near enough the museum to be part of it. But because of some building restrictions, Mrs. Hobby wasn't permitted to give it to the museum, or make it into a gentleman's club. And it was a sad day when that building had to be torn down for tax purposes. I mean, I understand the economics behind Mrs. Hobby's decision. It wouldn't have interfered. It would have been a back entrance on Montrose. People needn't have gone in. Look at dear Ima Hogg. She had to build—
[00:51:00.91]
SANDRA CURTIS: A bridge over the Ohio.
[00:51:02.44]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: A bridge. And so Mother thought there were a great many buildings, some of them needlessly torn down, to house—she was not interested in a monument to herself, which most buildings become. Don't you feel?
[00:51:21.17]
SANDRA CURTIS: No, I think so. And they're planned that way now, too.
[00:51:24.12]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Either monuments to the architect, or monuments to an individual. Mother wanted the enlightenment of the human mind, and she didn't want—like Mother always said, "A woman should dominate her dress and the dress not dominate the woman."
[00:51:49.82]
SANDRA CURTIS: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That's nice.
[00:51:50.72]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And some women dress just to knock out your eyes as you see them the first time. And hence, some buildings are. Mother was a very brilliant woman, and she had a great humility. She didn't want her name plastered. She wasn't even that keen about the S.C.B. Gallery at the University of Houston, only that she wanted the students—it was a modest gallery. It certainly wasn't sensational in its architectural ambitions. It was adequate. I think I probably told you something very important about my mother in her desire not to have a building with her name on it, or funds from her foundation to go into such a building.
[00:52:53.64]
SANDRA CURTIS: It is a very selfless sort of gesture in promoting not only the fact that children from these various regions in Texas can have art accessible to them, and the direct connection into the sponsoring of the research aspects of vision—
[00:53:22.21]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Right.
[00:53:22.57]
SANDRA CURTIS: Certainly a magnanimous gesture on the part of anyone.
[00:53:25.39]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Consistent with Mother's whole life. I've had so many people tell me that being one hour with her, or half an hour with her even at her bedside in the last ten years of her life when she was an invalid, they were lifted by her conversation, and had light thrown on dark areas of their lives.
[00:53:48.10]
She was a very creative woman in her human relationships. I remember meeting a lady recently who wanted to tell me about her early days in Houston when she'd come in from the country, and she was working for a newspaper. And she was rather shy, and not too much at home with social life in Houston. And whenever Mother saw her, she'd say, "Just stand up there straight. Step back a bit. You are beautiful. You are more beautiful today than you were last week." And she was never with Mother that she didn't make her feel better.
[00:54:29.44]
SANDRA CURTIS: What a tribute.
[00:54:30.85]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: And I think those are some of the reasons we can't always give money. Sometimes, money doesn't help. Maybe it's just the right word at the right time.
[00:54:40.96]
SANDRA CURTIS: Right. Oh, absolutely. And that's a rare gift.
[00:54:46.81]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Mother picked up flagging spirits, including my own, enabling me to feel I could go through with something if I wanted to. Certainly with New Harmony, she tried to counsel me against my—she was afraid I was getting out too far on a financial limb there. But when Mr. Lilly began giving us his support, she said, "Well, darling, you'll have a powerful foundation to stand behind you and with you." And she gave it her blessing before she died.
[00:55:21.38]
SANDRA CURTIS: Oh, fantastic. She was a woman of great courage.
[00:55:26.15]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: It characterized her life.
[00:55:28.69]
SANDRA CURTIS: And certainly was farsighted not only in her ability to select paintings and collections, but in realizing what Texas needed, because Texas isn't New York City.
[00:55:41.44]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Right. She wasn't bringing coals to Newcastle.
[00:55:45.58]
SANDRA CURTIS: Exactly. Thank you very much for that.
[00:55:48.08]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Well, it's been a pleasure. And I'm sorry I didn't have all the catalogs with me.
[00:55:51.58]
SANDRA CURTIS: I'll add that to—
[00:55:52.23]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: But they are in the museum, and you may be happy to know they're in many of the leading museums and libraries of this country.
[00:56:01.11]
SANDRA CURTIS: I'm sure, because the exhibitions are wonderful exhibitions, and indeed stand up against any—certainly the Museum of Modern Art. [Laughs.]
[00:56:08.57]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: Right. We would say that's pardonable Texas pride.
[00:56:14.60]
SANDRA CURTIS: But well merited.
[00:56:17.51]
JANE BLAFFER OWEN: So I'm going to have to—
END OF TRACK AAA_owen80_5977_m]
[END OF INTERVIEW.]
