Tool Box
Lee Brown Coye - An Interview
Back to Coye Main Page
TAPE RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH MR. LEE BROWN C0YE (LC:) OF HAMILTON, NEW YORK MAY 26, 1964 by JOSEPH TROVATO (JT:)
| JT: | Lee, I have known you as a central New York artist ever since the 1940's and we have shown some of your paintings in our early Artists of central New York Exhibitions at Munson- Williams-Proctor Institute in Utica. I also recall your painting that was included in the Metropolitan Museum's Exhibition American Painting Today, it was called, of 1950. Now, as I remember it was an abstraction and I wonder whether you are working in that style today? | |
| LC: | Well, no I'm not. My painting today has gone back to the type of painting that I started as a result of this WPA project. There was a definite trend at that time in the middle 'thirties and the first painting I did was more or less of a realistic, well you might call it of the American school. I was very much concerned with social conditions and it developed into thinking in terms of architecture and putting bits in the paintings that would suggest the kind of people that lived in the architecture. | |
| JT: | I see. | |
| LC: | And as I progressed, I got interested in abstract painting. For a number of years I did quite a bit of it. I was fairly successful with it. Perhaps I should have carried on with it, I don't know, but today I've gone back into my old approach. I'm still interested in people and their activities and the places they live in, things of that nature, more of a realistic approach. | |
| JT: | I see. Do I understand correctly .that you are represented in the Metropolitan Museum by a work of yours? | |
| LC: | Yes. I have a painting in the Metropolitan in their permanent collection. It's a water color of an old house. I recall it's in the moonlight. It's a night scene and that picture was purchased from an exhibit. well, it was a Whitney Annual. Is that what they call it? | |
| JT: | Yes. When was it bought? When was this? | |
| LC: | It was bought . I don't know in 1938 or '39. | |
| JT: | As far back as that. This was still in the WPA period. | |
| LC: | Well, I wasn't on the WPA but it was in the period, yes. | |
| JT: | I understand. | |
| LC: | I exhibited in the Whitney for, oh, many years, in their annual shows until they went completely abstract and then of course I was out. | |
| JT: | I see. Some years ago you did some murals for a store in Utica. I think it was a store located on lower Genesee Street and I even remember the subject of the mural. It was early Utica showing lower Genesee Street. It was somewhat like the view in the well known Bartlett print. Your mural was done in tones of brown, I think. | |
| LC: | It was more or less monochrome, yes. | |
| JT: | Was this mural done after the WPA experience? | |
| LC: | Yes it was, quite a number of years after. | |
| JT: | Some time in the '40's would you say? | |
| LC: | Yes, it was during the war. I recall that. | |
| JT: | Now, what was the mural that you painted on the WPA. Was it one mural or did you do more than one? | |
| LC: | Well, the original contract or whatever you might call it was for one mural in the auditorium of the school in Cazenovia, the Cazenovia Central School. | |
| JT: | I see. | |
| LC: | It was a large thing as I recall, it was seven feet wide or eight feet wide and seventeen feet high. It was a tremendous project. I wouldn't dare tackle it today but in those days, when you were younger you didn't mind so much. | |
| JT: | How true that is. What was the subject of the mural? Were you given a subject to carry out or how did you determine the subject? | |
| LC: | Well, I was given a very general subject. It was instigated by some people in Cazenovia who were concerned with the history of Cazenovia, the early days of Cazenovia. Although they didn't restrict me in any way. They merely suggested that that be the subject and being somewhat of an amateur historian, I always have been interested in it, I got quite interested in the history of Cazenovia. The first sketch I made was of that, (which was crude) and we painted the thing and then the WPA project ended and the people of Cazenovia contributed money to complete five more. | |
| JT: | Five more murals? | |
| LC: | Five more murals. You see, there were six panels in all and the one that WPA paid for was just one of them off to one side of the auditorium. Well they wanted the whole room done and they couldn't pay a great deal of money but they were very generous about it. I wanted to do the work and I was very happy to get it. It was quite a chore. In the meantime after that was completed I moved to Syracuse and took a job. And I got to thinking about those murals and I thought I could improve them. So, I repainted the whole mess of them on my own. It was a challenge. | |
| JT: | That must have been quite an undertaking. | |
| LC: | It was an undertaking doing it part time. I remembers on weekends I would go out there and sleep on the stage of the auditorium. They'd give me a cot and I had my stuff out there. I worked for months and months and months on it part time. | |
| JT: | From the photograph, if this is one of the sketches of the Cazenovia murals, is that what this is that we're looking at right now? | |
| LC: | Well, yes. Those are the two and ones, they flank the stage. You see, the doorway was in here and there was a ventilator up here which didn't help much but I tried to design around it. | |
| JT: | Well, but I think that you certainly incorporated, or that you filled your space in a very good relationship with the doorways and ventilators up above. I notice that there is a, perhaps if I might call it, an influence in the mural. Perhaps Thomas Benton might enter in here as sort of an inspiration. Would you say that .... were you conscious of what I'm suggesting? | |
| LC: | I was very conscious of it. I am conscious and I was at that time. I think Benton fitted in with my philosophy-pretty well. I'm not comparing myself with Benton. I think he is one of our greatest painters but we are all influenced by people. You can't help but be. | |
| JT: | By all means. | |
| LC: | I wasn't copying Benton, I was influenced by him, which is a natural thing. | |
| JT: | Tell us Lee, where exactly did you paint the Cazenovia murals. Did you do it on location? Or did you have a place elsewhere where you actually carried out the work? | |
| LC: | Well, it was actually painted in two places. I was living in Cortland, New York, at the time when I received the commission and the thing as I said was about seven or eight feet by seventeen feet which is quite a big thing and the minister of the Universalist Church in Cortland, Gus Ulrich, God rest his soul, one of my very dear friends, allowed me to set this thing up in the church. A room big enough to put a seventeen foot mural in is hard to come by. | |
| JT: | Right, right. | |
| LC: | And every Sunday, I had to get down Sunday morning and get some help and lug the thing out so they could have their service. Then we carried it back and when we got a bad day ..... | |
| JT: | You mean in a rain storm? | |
| LC: | In the rainstorm we used to set it against the church with the face down and hope we didn't get too much water on it. When it was practically well maybe three quarters completed, we went to Cazenovia. That was when the project was beginning to run out and I recall the people of Cazenovia had raised this money to carry the project further. We took it to Cazenovia and I moved to Cazenovia. | |
| JT: | I see. It must have been quite an ordeal and quite an experience. | |
| LC: | It was a tremendous experience. It was probably one of the biggest experiences in my life. That's why the WPA was so important. | |
| JT: | Many artists were given the opportunity to learn mural techniques on the WPA. Were you one of these or how did you acquire your skill? | |
| LC: | Well as far as acquiring skill is concerned, that means if I have any it is a result of a good many years of application but you see we need some sort of inspiration or what should I say - moral support? | |
| JT: | Incentive. | |
| LC: | Some incentive. Tackling these projects is not something you can do especially during the depression when nobody has got anything. Now, I had a little sign shop in Cortland and if I had a week where I made $5 it was a big week. I had a small family. Of course I'm not complaining. I was in the same spot as everybody else. | |
| JT: | Right. Everyone was in the same boat. | |
| LC: | And I don't recall exactly where I read about this WPA. I think it was in the Post Standard or some Syracuse paper written by Ann Olmsted of the Syracuse museum. | |
| JT: | I believe she was then director of the Syracuse Museum. | |
| LC: | And she was also the regional director, I believe, of this Project. | |
| JT: | Well, that, I'm interested in knowing. | |
| LC: | And as I recall, it said in the paper that if you were interested in this to write to her. There was a little article about it and I wrote to her and told her I was available between engagements so to speak and was interested in what I could do. She wrote me back about the project in Cazenovia. I had met her once or twice but we didn't know each other at all. She didn't know me. I knew who she was, that's about the size of it and she wrote me back a very nice letter and told me about the project, told me the sizes and would I make a sketch. Well, I did. I also remember I wrote her a letter and the sketch was approved. That was where she told me about what the people of Cazenovia wanted, something on the historical basis and I went to the library and got what information I could about early Cazenovia. I made the sketch. I don't think it was terribly good. I was pretty young then but it was a sketch and they approved it. Right away I wanted to paint and I was willing to do most anything and we were paid well for those days. I think I received $37.50 a week. I was a big shot. I was a wheel. | |
| JT: | That was some pay. Did others work with you on this Cazenovia project or did you do that entirely on your own? | |
| LC: | Well, as far as the painting is concerned, it was all done by myself. They hired a very fine paper hanger. That was his profession, but he ..... | |
| JT: | This was for the installation. | |
| LC: | For the installation. That's a huge piece of canvas and when you get the lead and varnish on it to stick it, it becomes pretty heavy. | |
| JT: | I can imagine. | |
| LC: | The only trouble with this guy -- I remember this, Just a little anecdote about him -- he was a big strong type guy. He'd get up on a ladder or scaffold and he could handle that big thing. All I did was sort of guide it for him but he loved to drink. And you never knew quite what day he was going to show up. That's what I remember about him. As far as his technical ability was concerned he was a fine guy. | |
| JT: | I see. Lee, I think I forgot to ask you to tell us when you worked on the Cazenovia murals. The year I mean, what was the time when you were on that project? | |
| LC: | That was in the spring of 1934. | |
| JT: | Well gee, that was Just about the beginning of the WPA project. | |
| LC: | Yes, it was. | |
| JT: | At the very head. What else can you tell us about your experience on the WPA? This we all know, of course, meant a great deal to many artists. It was a way of tiding them over the depression and of course many artists were able to improve their own work because they were able to, not only earn their bread but they were able to continue to paint on these various projects, whether it was mural or easel painting and so on ..... | |
| LC: | Well, I think, Joe, that this WPA was the greatest incentive to American painting that ever was done. It was not only a question of earning your daily bread so to speak but it was a question of doing of enabling you to be an artist. There are very few artists even today in this country who are making any kind of what you would call a good living. at painting, even the big time. I know there are some people who get tremendous figures for their work but generally speaking it's not easy to make a good living at this type of thing, and be a creative person. | |
| JT: | Of course we all know that many artists have to, even today, when we are enjoying much great activity in the arts and we certainly have a great public appreciation of art but, despite all this, we know that many artists have to do other things in order to make a living -- to teach in other words. | |
| LC: | Yes, many people teach or they work in an advertising agency, even paint signs. I paint a lot of signs. Mow, I like to letter signs but the point I would like to make here is that the incentive that the WPA gave was a tremendous thing and I wish there could be some sort of such a subsidy now. Not for me but for the young people. I think it would have something to do -- and I may be sticking my neck way out here -- but I think it would have something to do with getting off of this pitch where people have to fight their way for recognition and I think a great deal of this so called modern art, sculpture and this stuff which doesn't seem, seems to me has very little to do with sculpture and creative work is merely an attempt to express themselves, to make themselves heard, rather than to express themselves through their creative ability. Does this make any sense to you? | |
| JT: | Well, I think so. | |
| LC: | The competition is keen and in the days of the WPA it was a very honest approach for most of the artists in spite of a lot of the charlatanism that went on. It was a chance without any pressure. You could make a living and you could do creative work and your work was shown. | |
| JT: | In other words, you were able to devote your full energies, to put all your energies into your art without having to bother with the promotional end of it? | |
| LC: | That is right. | |
| JT: | That's what you have in mind. | |
| LC: | That's right. I was accepted as an artist, whether I'm a good one or not is beside the point. I was accepted as an artist and I was very proud to say that I was on the WPA. It was a chance to do the thing I wanted to do more than anything else in this life and I was doing it. It was a wonderful thing. | |
| JT: | Well, Lee, I think that we've covered things pretty well. We appreciate very much your giving us all of this time and I know that what we've put on the tape will be of real value. Thank you very much. |
Library information
Address, Phone Number, etc.
Library, Morrisville State College of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 902, Eaton St., Morrisville, NY 13408
Phone: 315-684-6055 Fax: 315-684-6115
 |
Search the library website
Maintained by John Schuster. E-mail: schustjh@MORRISVILLE.EDU
Morrisville State College is a unit of the State University of New York