LEILA MCCONNELL (b. 1927)

Leila McConnell was born in Los Angeles, California. Her family moved to Houston when she was six and, after graduating from high school, she enrolled at Rice Institute (now Rice University). At the time, Rice had no department of architecture but McConnell sought inspiration from iconic professor, James Chillman. According to McConnell, Chillman had the greatest influence on her sense of design, proportion, and the ability to actually see her art. Studying freehand drawing, design, watercolor, art, and architectural history under Chillman, McConnell excelled. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice, she continued her art studies at the Museum School (now Glassell School) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

McConnell had impeccable academic training and her early paintings, both oil and pastel, were very realistic. The majority of her subject matter was either still life, figure studies, or portraits. In the summer of 1949, she attended the San Francisco School of Fine Arts and was fortunate to study under Mark Rothko. His vision and innovative instruction marked McConnell’s shift away from the realism that had previously dominated her works. After her classes with Rothko, she began to paint more abstract pieces, creating an imaginary girl in watercolor.

Realizing that she had a vivid imagination, McConnell embarked on a trip to Europe in 1960. The stucco buildings of Italy greatly impacted her vision and caused a change in her paintings. Her colors became soft and blended, often misty and portraying a sun or moon, causing the artist to deem many of her works “sky paintings.”

In 1976, McConnell began creating paper collages, a diversion from her painted works. Though small, her collages impacted the way McConnell created her paintings—her edges became harder, mixed with the mistiness of her skies and her compositions became more symmetrical. McConnell continues to paint in her unique style and develop her oeuvre of “sky” pieces.

Selected Biographical and Career Highlights:

1927 Born in Los Angeles, California

1948 BA, Rice University, Houston, Texas

1949 BS, Architecture, Rice University, Houston, Texas

1949 San Francisco School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California

1950–68 Instructor, Museum School, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

1954–59 Worked for Houston architect, Hamilton Brown

1956 Married artist, Henri Gadbois

1960 Visited Italy

Currently Resides in Houston, Texas

Selected Exhibitions:

1949 24th Annual Exhibition of Work by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1950 25th Annual Exhibition of Work by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1951 26th Annual Exhibition of Work by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1951 13th Annual Exhibition of Texas Painting and Sculpture 1951–1952, circulated: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio, TX

1952 27th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1953 28th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1953 Houston Art League, Houston, TX

1954 29th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (Awarded James Bute Co. Prize)

1954 Contemporary Art Association Rental Collection 1955, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX

1955 30th Annual Exhibition of Works by Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1955 Texas Fine Arts Exhibit of Paintings & Watercolors, Midwestern Museum, Wichita Falls, TX

1955 31st Annual Exhibition of Houston Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1956 Shadow and Substance: The Shadow Theater of Montmartre and Modern Art, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX

1956 Art Rental Service – 1957 Collection, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX

1957 32nd Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1958 Texas Oil ’58, A Salute to the Oil Industry of the State by Texas Painters, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, traveled to: Bank of the Southwest, Houston; Dallas Public Library, Dallas; Republic National Bank of Dallas, TX (catalogue)

1958 33rd Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1958 D. D. Feldman Competitive Award Exhibit: The Contemporary Work of 88 Texas Artists, traveled; 1958 Jul–Aug at McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; DuBose Gallery, Houston, TX; Leslie Muth Gallery, Houston, TX

1959 34th Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1959 Museum School Faculty Print Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1959 21st Annual Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition 1959–1960, circulated: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio; Beaumont Art Museum, Beaumont; Museum, Texas Tech, Lubbock; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1960 35th Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1961 Longview Invitational, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, TX

1961 23rd Annual Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition 1961–1962, circulated: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio; Beaumont Art Museum, Beaumont; Museum, Texas Tech, Lubbock, TX

1962 Longview Invitational, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, TX

1962 Museum School Faculty Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

1964 26th Annual Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition 1964–1965, circulated: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Beaumont Art Museum, Beaumont; Witte Museum, San Antonio; Texas Western College, El Paso; University of Texas at Austin, TX

1967 The Swanson Collection of Contemporary Texas Artists, Fort Worth Art Center, Fort Worth, TX

1968 Social Commentary Art Exhibition, Jewish Community Center, Bellaire, TX

1971 Art Sales and Rental Galleries Exhibition, Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, TX

1986 Solo, Leila McConnell: Collage to Canvas—New Works of Paper & Paintings, Plain Folk Gallery, Houston, TX

2004 A Selection of Art Made in Houston 1950-1965, Brazos Projects, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

2004–05 Rice Institute and the Visual Arts in Houston: 1900–1960, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, TX

2006 Houston Art in Houston Collections: Works from 1900 to 1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, TX

2006–07 Of This Vast State: Women Artists of Texas, 1900–1960, Women’s Museum, Dallas, TX

2007 Timeless: A Retrospective of Selected Women Artists of Texas, 1940 to Present, David Dike Fine Art, Dallas; William Reaves Fine Art, Houston; Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

2007–08 Urban Texas: Changing Images of an Evolving State, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX

2008 Founders of Houston Art: Thirty Artists Who Led the Way, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2009 Back to the Future: Elements of “Modern” in Mid-Century Texas Art, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2009 Leila McConnell and Henri Gadbois: Side by Side, O’Kane Gallery, University of Houston—Downtown, Houston, TX

2009 Lone Star Still Lifes, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX

2010 Third Anniversary Show: A Tribute to Houston Artists, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2010 Pioneering Women: Three Modernists in Houston—Dorothy Hood, Leila McConnell, Stella Sullivan, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2010 The Presence of Light: Sky and Light in the Texas Landscape, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2010 Texas Collages: A Tribute to Kurt Schwitters, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2011 Southeast Texas Art: Cross-Currents and Influences, 1925–1965, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX

2011 Lone Star Modernism: A Celebration of Mid-Century Texas Art, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2011 Portrait of Houston: 1900–2011, Alliance Gallery, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, TX (catalogue)

2011 Breakthrough: Sixty Years of Texas Abstraction, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2012 A Survey of Texas Modernists, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2013 A Tribute to Texas Rivers, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2013 Rhythms of Modernism, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2013 Summer Encore Exhibition, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2014 Macrocosm/Microcosm: Abstract Expressionism in the American Southwest, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

2014 Houston Founders at City Hall Art Exhibition, City Hall, Houston, TX

2014 A New Visual Vocabulary: Developments in Texas Modernism 1935-1965, One Allen Center, Lobby Gallery, Houston, TX

2015 Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX (catalogue)

2015 Midcentury Montage: Works by Three Houston Modernists, William Reaves Fine Art, Houston, TX

2016 Texas Originals: Six Bayou City Expressionists, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2016 This WAS Contemporary Art: Fine and Decorative Arts in Houston 1945-1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, TX (catalogue)

2016 Celebrating Houston's Founding Modernists: David Adickes, Leila McConnell & Henri Gadbois, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2017 The Art of Found Objects-redux!, Williams Tower Gallery, Houston, TX

2017 Houston’s Expressionist Legacy: Richard Stout & Friends, Reaves Foltz, Houston TX

2018 South and North of the Border: Houston Paints Houston / Houston Paints Mexico, The Heritage Society Museum Gallery, Houston, TX

2018 South and North of the Border: Houston Paints Mexico, Houston Public Library, Julia Ideson Building, Houston, TX

2018 Midcentury Mod in Motion, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2019 Up Close and Personal: Portraits from the Reaves Collection of Texas Art, The Grace Museum, Abilene, TX

2019 Texas in the Abstract: Selections from the Texas A&M University Permanent Collection and the Linda and William Reaves Collection of Texas Art, Start Galleries, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

2020 Summer Salon, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2020 Another World: Recent Collages by Leila McConnell, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2021 Ron Hartgrove & Leila McConnell, The Jung Center, Houston, TX

2021 Evocative Objects: Still Life Painting in Texas, J. Wayne Stark Galleries, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

2021 Summer Salon: Houston Founders & Texas Modernism, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2022 Houston Midcentury Mélange, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

2022 Texas Artists: Women of Abstraction, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX

2022 Contemporary Texas Women Artists: Abstraction Here & Now, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX

2023 Solo, Leila McConnell: Somewhere Beyond, Foltz Fine Art, Houston, TX

Selected Public Collections

Civic Art Program, City of Houston, Texas

Houston Industries Incorporated, Houston, TX

Menil Collection, Houston, TX

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX

Nicholson Memorial Library, Longview, TX

Old Jail Art Center, Albany, TX

Public Art, University of Houston Systems, Victoria, TX

Texas A&M University Museum, College Station, TX

The John Nau Collection of Texas Art, Houston, TX

Literature:

Robert Craig Bunch, The Art of Found Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists, Texas A&M University Press, 2016, pages 124-126.

Katie Robinson Edwards, Midcentury Modern Art in Texas, University of Texas Press, 2014.

Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas (catalogue), 2015.

This WAS Contemporary Art: Fine and Decorative Arts in Houston 1945-1965, Heritage Society Museum, Houston, Texas (catalogue), 2016.

Leila McConnell Collage

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