Interview: A Remarkable Conversation with Luis Stephens
In a recent interview Luis Stephens, Annette Nancarrow's son, recalls some highlights from his mother’s life:
Annette with her two sons, Charles and Luis Stephens.
RC: Luis, did you grow up thinking of your mother as an artist?
LS: Absolutely. From the earliest time I can remember she was always drawing or painting, and giving me paper or crayons for me to draw. All her friends also thought of her as an artist, which prompted her to organize painting classes for groups of kids our age when we were as young as five or six. I recall there were as many as 30 kids in our weekly group. Years later some of them became professional artists and claimed that it was my mother who initiated their career. One incident I clearly recall from when I was about 5 years old. My mother hosted a life drawing class in our home for then famous Mexican artists, including Diego Rivera. The model was Maudelle Boss, an African American dancer who had travelled from the United States to Mexico to dance and was my mom’s guest in our home. She posed nude for the artist group in a living room extension we had with picture windows. My brother and I were not allowed in, so we went running around to the outside, trying to peer in through the windows. Alas, to our disappointment, they had been papered over with newspaper. Rivera, especially, made some important paintings of this model.
RC: When did you begin to appreciate the extent of Annette’s talent, her place among the notable artists of her time, and the extraordinary life she lived?
LS: Probably as early as my pre-teen years and ongoing through to my early adult years. My mother had an extraordinary ability to draw. Even in her doodles it was apparent and certainly in landscape drawings, drawings of people or faces, market or bullfight scenes. Many of her quick sketches were made on random sheets of paper: napkins, hotel stationary, envelopes, telephone books, or any other scrap she had at her fingertips. Her artistic sensibility was apparent in her appreciation and collection of primitive and pre-Hispanic sculptural works and also paintings by other artists of merit. She even saw the beauty in old weathered brick, shells, a piece of driftwood, or hand-embroidered textiles. I don’t believe that anyone else at that time designed and made the kind of jewelry that became her signature pieces. Since her materials were mostly of pre-Columbian origin they were more massive than conventional jewelry and had a unique appeal. She was blessed with natural talent and a discerning eye for the aesthetic and I was always aware of this.
As to her place among the notable artists of her time I would say that she was highly respected as an artist by all those who knew her work.
She did live an extraordinary life, all of which had its origin in her aesthetic sensibility as well as a gutsy desire to direct her own activities. She loved music and theater, read extensively, relished good food, traveled the world, and was socially active hosting frequent dinner parties where she entertained friends of all social strata. She was affable and open minded and had so many friends that she could be walking a street in as remote a place as Istanbul and bump into someone she knew. She was frugal and generous at once, had a hearty sense of humor and a healthy sexual appetite. She was married three times. My father was her second husband, which she admits was the love of her life even though the marriage ended in divorce. She was only marginally interested in politics preferring socializing and artistic involvements. For me she was a warm, loving, and supportive mother.
RC: Besides Diego Rivera, do you recall visits to your home of Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, David Siqueiros, and other notables of that time? How did these social occasions strike you?
LS: When my parents were married there were frequent visits with Rivera and Orozco both at our house and in their studios. In 1943 Rivera painted a portrait of my father at my mother’s request, and in 1944 Orozco painted a portrait of my mother. I remember quite vividly seeing these portraits in the making in their respective studios. At about this time the American contralto, Marian Anderson, held a concert in the Palace of Fine Arts. There’s a photograph of her with Orozco, Orozco’s wife, my parents, and my brother and me in our house entrance. My father taught Marian a Mexican song that is traditionally sung as a farewell piece called “Las Golondrinas.” When she sang it in Spanish at her last concert in Bellas Artes the standing ovation s lasted over ten minutes.
I remember briefly seeing Frida in Rivera’s studio. Other artists who were frequent visitors were Jesús Guerrero Galván, who created a lovely life-size charcoal portrait of my mother; Federico Cantú, who also painted her portrait, Jesús (Chucho) Reyes Ferreira; Miguel Covarrubias; Miguel Rodriguez Lozano; Juan O’Gorman; and Roberto Montenegro. My mother and I also visited Tamayo and Siqueiros in their studios when I was a young adult as well as, years later, the architect Luis Barragán, with my wife Karen. My mother had known Barragán since the 1940s when he was involved in the novel modernistic housing development called “Jardines del Pedregal.” My mother was close with José Luis Cuevas who, with his wife, frequented her dinner parties. I don’t think there was an artist in Mexico that she didn’t know personally. These occasions and artist visits are among my most pleasant and enriching, formative life experiences.
RC: When your mother married Conlon Nancarrow were you close to him? What do you recall about those years?
LS:After their marriage, I became very close to Conlon. Conlon was the ideal stepfather—always friendly and caring, and he did not believe in hard discipline for children, or anyone else for that matter. His philosophy, I surmised, was that any motivation a person may develop must come naturally from within. My first knowledge about the universe, stars, galaxies, and atoms came from Conlon. He was a good chess player and it took me years before I could occasionally beat him. He had a great carpentry tool shop, which I marveled at since I love tools. In those early years he was diligently trying to create a system to automatically play percussion instruments and drums, some of which he made himself out of Mexican earthenware pots. To this day I can see him in my mind’s eye taking soaked kidskin out of a bowl and stretching it over the sawed-off bottom of one of those large pots and tying it to the handles. As it dried in the sun it would become highly taut and could be struck to a lively tone.
RC: What to your mind was your mother’s single most remarkable achievement?
LS: Her painting. Her painting was remarkably, qualitatively significant. There are few women artist who have achieved this advanced level. My unbiased opinion is that she will eventually become recognized as one of America’s most noteworthy women painters.
Luis Stephens as an adult with one of his paintings. More of his paintings are available on his website.
Luis Stephens was born in Mexico City in 1938. After graduating from Columbia College with a degree in Economics he spent 3 years as an officer in the US Navy, then returned to Mexico to work in the family chemical manufacturing business. At the age of 28 he took charge of the company. His interest in art began as a child with painting classes with his mother. In 1967 he pursued weekly evening painting classes under the tutelage of an American painter living in Mexico, Maxwell Gordon. Stephens has exhibited his work in Mexico at the Centro Cultural Isidro Favela; in the Museum of Art and Archeology at Xochicalco, a World Heritage Site; in the Museo Carillo Gill. He has also exhibited in New York City at the Milk Gallery; the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center; and Columbia University’s LeRoy Neiman Gallery; as well as at Fisher Gallery, Oberlin College, as artist-in-residence, and the Northfield Mount Hermon School Rhodes Art Center. Stephens participated in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich as a member of the Mexican National Fencing Team.