Jessiejo
Eckford (1895-1941) was to become one of Texas’ finest early
artists. Winning her first prize in 1916, many more were to follow.
Her will to achieve and create won the admiration of one of her
early instructors, Frank Reaugh. In 1921 she studied with Edwin
Roscoe in California and 1926 she traveled to New England to study
with Felicie Howell in Gloucester. There are few exhibition venues
in Texas and the South that she did not display her work, The Witte
in San Antonio, The Davis Wildflower Exhibitions, The Cotton Palace,
The Galveston Cotton Carnival, the Delgado Museum in New Orleans,
The Texas Centennial Exposition and a host of regional expositions.
Her solo exhibitions included the Elizabet Ney Museum in Austin,
Frank Klepper Art Club, and Joseph Sartor Gallery in Dallas.
Nationally she was to show at the California Palace of the Legion
of Honor, the San Francisco; Print Club of Albany, New York, the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., the International
Printmakers, Los Angeles, California, the Washington Watercolor
Club, Washington, D.C., the American Watercolor Society, New York
City, the Midwestern Artists, Kansas City, Missouri; and the
Southern States Art League. The painting, “Distant City”, was first
exhibited in 1919 at the Annual Texas Artists Exhibition. Paintings
done in oil are very scarce as she turned to watercolor and block
prints early in her career. It is dated 1918.