Stokely Webster

Stokely Webster was born in Evanston, Illinois. His parents were the noted author Henry Kitchell Webster and Mary Ward Orth. As a child, he spent his summers at Bee Tree Farm, the family retreat built by his grandfather, industrialist Towner K. Webster. He credited his time at that “magical place” with shaping his world view and future painting. One of his earliest works, “Willows and Sky,” was painted at the Farm when he was 17 years old. As a youth, he traveled with his family to Paris, France where he was enthralled by the paintings of the French impressionists and post-impressionists and embarked on his own fledgling efforts at plein-air cityscapes. In 1922 he spent a year in France where he saw Monet at work in his Giverny garden and viewed his paintings at the Luxembourg Palace. He decided at that time to be a painter. His first studies were with family friend Lawton S. Parker, an American artist who had studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme and James McNeill Whistler. He taught young Webster the century-old traditions of painting, generally accepted up until World War II. After returning to America in 1924, he dedicated the next ten years to educating himself through a succession of art-school courses, studying architecture at Yale University and spending two years in Chicago, Illinois working as a textile designer. == Maturity ==

In 1933, he married renowned ballerina and satirical dancer Iva Kitchell. In 1936 he studied for six months with Robert Henri's disciple Wayman Adams, learning portrait painting and landscape technique, which combined the high-valued colors of impressionism with the methods of Henri and John Singer Sargent. A one-man exhibition, which opened in New York the same year he completed the painting, Times Square, drew praise from The New York Sun, "Mr. Webster paints in the way that at one time was thought the only way to paint, using the flowing strokes and well-thinned-out pigments that came to us through Sargent via Frans Hals and Velasquez." A reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune endorsed that opinion, comparing Webster's technical skills to those of Sargent, while others praised his expertise at capturing the momentary impression of a place and his exceptionally convincing and precise use of light as the force defining its mood, climate, and urban disposition. Webster's joy at this reception, which buttressed his ambition to focus on painting full-time, was savored only briefly. The outbreak of World War II had soon shifted him to the assembly line at Grumman Aircraft Corporation, leading to his pursuit of an engineering degree at Columbia University and seven years of steady employment designing airplanes. In 1983, Webster and his wife took up residence in Flagler Beach, Florida after many years as Long Island, New York residents. Mrs. Webster died later that year. Two books were published about Stokely Webster during his life: Stokely Webster Paintings, 1923-1984, published in 1985 by the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, Florida; and Stokely Webster and his Paris…New York, London and Venice published in 2001 by Connecticut River Press. Webster died in 2001, in Southport, Connecticut. == References ==