Jean Oliver Sartor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean Oliver Sartor (August 1, 1918 - July 29, 2007) was an artist in Shreveport, Louisiana, who was instrumental in the founding of the R.S. Barnwell Memorial Garden and Arts Center. A frequent exhibitor in the International Society of Experimental Artists, Sartor was also a member of the Shreveport Visual Arts Hall of Fame. Just prior to her death, she was recognized as a founding member of the Hoover Water Color Society and had a solo retrospective exhibit at the Meadows Museum of Art at Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport.

She painted and gardened on twelve acres that she shared with her husband of sixty-seven years, E. Alton Sartor, Jr. (also born 1919). She was a chairwoman of the Holiday in Dixie Cotillion and a member of the Junior League and the Silver Rose Society. She received numerous refereed awards for her work.

Sartor was a debutante from Atlanta, Georgia. During World War II, she was employed at an ammunition plant as an artillery shell inspector. She moved to Shreveport after she and her husband wed in 1940.

In the early days of the Barnwell Center, horticulturists and artists fought for dominance. As one with an interest in both fields, Sartor nevertheless took a strong stand for the artists.

Daughter Elisabeth "Ibby" Harden, in an interview with society columnist Margaret Martin of the Shreveport Times, described her mother as "eccentric." Sartor maintained a rock garden in which divided the "good" snakes from the "bad" snakes, and she refused to allow the killing of a "good" snake. She allowed her children to keep "unusual pets, turtles, alligators, a monkey, horned toads, guinea pigs, mice, cats and dogs." But she would not permit an opossum that son Oliver, III, once hid in the basement. The creature damaged the air conditioning insulation in the home.

Services for Sartor were held on July 31, the day before her 89th birthday, at Noel Memorial United Methodist Church in Shreveport. Interment was in Forest Park Cemetery, St. Vincent's Avenue, in Shreveport.