Ray Boynton

Ray Scepter Boynton (1883 – 1951)^[1] also sometimes known as Raymond Boynton, was an American artist and arts educator, he is most famous for his mural work in California during the Great Depression when he earned commissions under the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and the Federal Art Project (FAP). He worked at Coit Tower, painting murals with Ralph Stackpole, Bernard Zakheim, and Edith Hamlin (wife of Maynard Dixon). He also painted murals at the Modesto Post Office which has been in the news during the first and second decade of the 2000s for preservation. Outside of his public commissions he was a teacher at a couple different post-secondary institutions.

Biography

Early life

Ray Scepter Boynton was born in Whitten, Iowa on January 14, 1883. Born to farming parents, he didn't really take to the soil. After graduating high school in 1901 he moved to Chicago in 1903 to attend the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts (now known as School of the Art Institute of Chicago) from 1905 – 1907.^[2] While there, he was an usher at the Iroquois Theatre and was present when it caught fire on December 30, 1903.^[3] It is the deadliest theatre fire in American history; he escaped with minor burns. Upon completion of study at the academy he moved to Eastern Washington because a brother lived there; Ray resided there for seven years. He described art culture in Eastern Washington as lacking. Some art he was able to keep in his life was teaching private lessons in Spokane, WA; he was hired to paint curtains for a high school theatre; and, eventually, he garnered a commission to paint the Spokane Falls on a mural to be placed in City Hall's first council chamber (about 1913). Unfortunately, in renovations of City Hall, it was ruined when workers nailed boards over it; it was forgotten, and then it was rediscovered in the 1960s.^[4] Although efforts were made to raise funds to restore it, the mural was eventually sold and is now in private hands (according to emails with Spokane's Museum of Art and Culture - known as the MAC). During these seven years in Eastern Washington, Boynton perhaps spent more time farming than in artistic endeavours.^[5] Finally, luck broke his way about 1914 when he became a judge for the Northwest region of art that was to be sent to San Francisco for the 1915 World's Fair called the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE). He first went to Seattle to judge the artwork (he also got some of his work into PPIE), and then he continued to San Francisco where he would take up permanent residence for many years.

California 1920s

The 25 year stretch from 1915 to 1940 is perhaps the most important phase of Ray Boynton's life. He moved to San Francisco where a real art scene existed; his art in the PPIE helped create connections that would serve him well; he got a job at the California School of Fine Arts in 1920; in 1923 he became employed at the Department of Art of the University of California at Berkeley; he showed in numerous exhibits; Boynton, amongst others (Ralph Stackpole, Bernard Zakheim, Victor Arnautoff), went to Mexico to study with Diego Rivera; and he sought and procured many commissions both public and private. It could be said luck fell his way because he had a knack to be in the right place at the right time. Anthony W. Lee writes about Boynton, "...a number of younger painters vied for leadership. Two of them - Ray Boynton and Maynard Dixon - were able to attach themselves to a specific group of patrons...Dixon and Boynton, who had played absolutely no role in 1915, gained an advantage by recognizing the new social and political requirements and mapping their artistic interests onto them."^[6] In addition, San Francisco, from the end of WWI to the beginning of WWII, had many left leaning artists. It also had union riots and demonstrations - supposedly in support of Communist ideals. Boynton, although sympathetic, was far enough removed so that his name wasn't tarnished and he brought stability to the art scene when supporters of the artists began to grow tired of extremism by the mid to late 1930s.^[7]

In 1915, Boynton finally made it to San Francisco when hundreds upon hundreds works of art were located at the Pacific-Panama International Exposition. The California Art Research biography states, "To be thrown into sudden contact with thousands of paintings, after so long an isolation, was like surrounding a starving man with food. He responded readily to the broader field of activities that San Francisco offered and his artistic growth became rapid and steady," (pg. 6). He began broadening his artistic abilities by learning pastel and fresco. After PPIE left town, and many of the makeshift buildings were torn down, the social elite of San Francisco began looking for artists to "beautify" the city with large murals and mosaics. Boynton, along with Maynard Dixon, stepped forward. Although he had just meager experience with murals from his time in Spokane, WA, he must have known he needed to seize the moment.

Seizing the moment also led to Boynton's appointment to two faculties: the California School of Fine Arts and the University of California at Berkeley. Having previous teaching experience in Spokane, WA, being shown in PPIE, and having done two large works in Spokane no doubt helped his résumé. Lee remarks that Boynton's job at CFSA was given because it was a small school and because Boynton had seen great works of art in museums and exhibitions - not just in books.^[8] Mary Fabilli, a former art student of Boynton, who helped put together an exhibition of Ray Boynton's work in 1976 (after his death), provides another possible motive for his hire besides being well traveled. She writes, "His ability to speak, to write, his versatility, variety of work experience and affable personality endeared him to journalists and to the general public. There was nothing dandified or effete about him, and the shaggy crop of hair and woolen tweeds [he wore] carried conviction of rough hewn 100% American masculinity." His personality seems to have endeared him to his peers, and - most likely - would help him land a job. Once on these faculties he began writing for local papers and magazines. He was a critic, a theorist, and editorialist. His writing served him well, as Fabilli notes: "His contact with the newspaper business stood him in good stead, for in later years there was no difficulty about getting a sympathetic hearing from the press, and he was often consulted when other artists or teachers might be avoided or ignored.".^[9]

Boynton's good fortunes lived on a fault line for most of the 1920s. Whatever joy he found from work was tempered with problems at home. Quoting again from the California Art Research biography, they write, "In 1919 Boynton married in San Francisco, Miss Margaret Gough, a Canadian by birth, who unfortunately died of tuberculosis in 1930. Boynton, with his strongly built physique sacrificed many painting hours to give tender nursing service to his semi-invalid "Peggy,"" (pg. 10). However, this did not stop amazing experiences from coming to Boynton. In the mid-1920s he went to Mexico to study with Diego Rivera. Boynton took this invitation because, as Anthony W. Lee writes in his extensive book on Diego Rivera in San Francisco - Painting on the Left, "...Boynton understood that, despite the mastery with which he was credited at CSFA [California School of Fine Arts], he required instruction from a more accomplished mural painter. On his arrival in Mexico he found Rivera at work on his massive Communist-inspired series at the Ministry of Education and the grand monumental panels at Chapingo," (pg. 42). Having first hand instruction from Rivera seemed to help Boynton earn another commission - the murals at Mills College - but did little to temper the criticism he received for his final product. Although in an interview he is noted as saying, "...a commission which he feels is his most important work,"^[10] Anthony W. Lee writes that opinions of others, at the time, were not equal to Boynton's. Barbaric and failure stand out as prime examples over five pages of Lee's writing on these murals.^[11]

California 1930s

Both Boynton and Dixon were left off a major mural project in 1929 that came under public scrutiny - which Dixon was highly agitated by. Rivera was to paint a mural in the California School of Fine Arts. After intense mud slinging by journalists, editorial writers, and competing groups of artists the location was changed to a private lunch club at the Stock Exchange. One editorial proclaimed low level/less experienced artists as being equal to those who rubbed elbows with Rivera in grandiose terms. Allegations about Rivera were common in the subjects of Communism and being an immigrant.^[12] Both artists would learn from this experience, and Boynton would be able to be seen as a moderate later in the 1930s.

Early in the 1930s Ray Boynton began venturing out to gold mining ghost towns of California and Nevada. Many of his drawings focus on Downieville. During this time he also married his second wife (whom he later divorced). These ghost towns were drawing people who were down on their luck that thought they could squeak out a living by finding left over gold flakes from long ago. Those who were real lucky, and had the skills, might get on with a professional mining company. The subsequent drawings created were later exhibited a couple of times (UC Berkeley, and Mills College). Although well received, one entry into a judged competition was rejected. It was viewed as too conservative against more "modern" pieces of art: avant-garde or abstract.^[13] This rejection corresponds with the shift of power away from Boynton and Maynard Dixon that is pointed out by Anthony W. Lee as well. In the mural works sphere of art Bernard Zakheim and Victor Arnautoff had replaced Boynton and Dixon. Lee states this change was set in stone by June 1931.^[14] It is interesting that these two artists would ascend for the very reasons that had been charged against Diego Rivera only a couple years before. Zakheim, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, and Arnautoff, an immigrant from Russia, were both openly supportive of socialism/communism, or far left politics.

The rise of Zakheim in San Francisco coincided with the Coit Tower murals. He and Ralph Stackpole were influential in obtaining the Federal commission. Numerous artists participated, many of whom had previously worked with Diego Rivera. Most of the murals have historical reflections, but they do not seem to tell a chronological story. Suspicions arose from journalists and others that the paintings would take on a political stance "left of center," and soon small battles were emerging in public about the direction that should be taken; the suspicions were not unfounded. These artists, led by Zakheim, had formed an Artists' and Writers' Union only a year before, and it included artists who were not that extreme - Stackpole and Boynton amongst others. During this time strikes broke out along the piers which the artists could view from their perch atop the city. Some painters tried to incorporate this into their murals. The "left" leaning artists supported the strikes, but their support was perhaps minimal compared to the rucus that was taking place with the longshoremen. However, public art is always inflammatory. Lee writes, "By June, Fleishhacker was leading a movement to destroy the murals, finding the work of some painters wholly unacceptable and, as we will observe, dangerous. The contentious Zakheim came under intense fire, and his mural, along with several others, was slated for whitewashing."^[15] To kill the fire, some influential patrons began lifting up the previous decades' art leaders - Boynton (with substantial mural experience) was chosen as the new "spiritual leader," as Lee says. "To the surprise of Zakheim, who proposed the mural program, and Arnautoff, who directed the daily work, Boynton was named high priest... They [Coit Tower murals] were given a lineage, traced back to the post-PPIE productions and the Dixon-Boynton debates, not to Rivera."^[16]

Post WWII

Little is written about Ray Boynton after 1940. It is known he continued to work at UC Berkeley until June 1948. Once he retired, he and his third wife - Beryl Wynnyk Boynton - moved to Sante Fe, New Mexico. Ray Boynton passed away from cancer September 26, 1951 in Albuquerque, NM.^[17] He had no children.

After passing away in 1951, the life and work of Ray Boynton has continued to be studied. In 1976, during the 25th anniversary of Boynton's death (1976), The Oakland Museum, with help from Mary Fabilli, ran an exhibition called Ray Boynton and the Mother Lode: The Depression Years. The museum guild purchased a large collection of Boynton drawings and paired it with accounts from those men and women who came to look for gold during the Great Depression. Not only was an exhibit produced, but also a catalog - carrying the exhibition's name - with a biography and accounts from the miners.

All the public works of the 1930s, and the buildings they were attached to (in various art mediums) eventually began to get old and "out-dated." As time wore on the buildings began to get remodeled. Barbara Bernstein, working for the New Deal Art Registry, said in an interview, "A lot of art was lost through sheer ignorance because many people didn't think it was worth saving." This is what occurred with the Modesto downtown post office. Remodeled in the 1960s, several of Ray Boynton's murals were removed. The contractor of the job asked if any of the workers would like to buy them - otherwise they would be scrapped. One worker bought them but had no place to display them; they were stored in a shed for the next 40-plus years. After reading of renovation efforts for the post office and of the missing murals, a local Modesto man thought he had seen the removed artwork at a family member's house. The man was right, and the family donated them back to the city. Bernstein further explained, "Ray Boynton is a significant figure in California art history... The murals in the Modesto post office are very fine examples of what the Treasury Section of Fine Arts set out to do: not just provide jobs for artists, but bring original and accessible art to cities and towns of all sizes. They put these murals in public places where people went as part of their daily life (rather than in places that were) formal or intimidating like a museum."^[18] The Post Office was eventually sold to private investors, and in December 2013 it was declared that the building would become a law office.^[19]

Legacy

Remembrance of Ray Boynton by Masha Zakheim Jewett: "My anecdote about Ray Boynton is very meagre [sic] - but I do remember as a child (about 1938) going with him and my father [Bernard Zakheim] to visit John Steinbeck in Monterey and also Colonel Charles Erskine Scott Wood in Los Gatos, with whom we had lunch in a formal dining room in his home. I remember well the servants and the silver service, and that the Colonel was a bearded man. At the entrance of the driveway to his home there were two stone cats in a sitting position with their front paws sticking out. When we were with John Steinbeck I spent most of my time putting birds back into a nest. Later that year I was ill with something, measles or mumps, and Mr. Boynton sent me two gifts which charmed me: one was a watch with only one hand, which no longer worked, and the other was a bottle of clear pink Cutex nail polish - the old fashioned type with two fingers on the label painted with the color of the polish within. He certainly knew what little girls liked!"^[20]

Work

Bibliography

• Ray Boynton and the Mother Lode: The Depression Years (Exhibition Catalog, from May 4 through August 15, 1976), Fabilli, Mary, The Oakland Museum (1976), Oakland, California.^[24]
• Poems from the Ranges, Wood, Charles Erskine Scott (with woodcut illustration by Ray Boynton), The Lantern Press, (1929), San Francisco, California^[25]

References

See also

• Federal Art Project (FAP)