Ep. 13: Out of the Shadows: A One Woman Show
One thing never changed for Annette Nancarrow.
Annette’s self-portrait.
Annette’s interest in art in all its forms—from oil paints, to sketches, to jewelry design—never wavered no matter what was going on in her personal life. Into her last years, she still drew and painted constantly wherever she was, on whatever materials were at hand, from canvas or paper, napkins or cardboard. Her mind was always filled with images she was driven to bring to life.
A lonely period followed her divorce from Louis Stephens. Although the couple had joint custody of their sons, Louis wanted them to improve their English and to be educated in the United States. Luis and Charles left Mexico to live in Somers, New York, with their father and stepmother. A few months later, she ran by chance into Conlon Nancarrow and revived their affair. They married in 1946.
In December of 1947, Annette would have her first one-woman show at the prestigious Galeria de Arte Mexicano owned by Inés Amor (for more on this famous gallerist of the era). The two women had met a decade earlier but neither knew then that Inez would become one of the most prominent art dealers of the era. For her show, Annette would exhibit about 20 large oils on canvas and 15 on paper. Invitations would go out, some on yellow fabric and some on white paper. Annette wrote to her former sister-in-law saying, “Diego Rivera promised to write my introduction and then went and got himself into trouble shooting at a bus driver.” Instead, José Clemente Orozco wrote:
“Everything Annette Nancarrow paints is just like her . . . ingenuous, gay, very gay, with a gaiety that scintillates and permeates everything. Her imagination transports us into a make-believe world that we have long ago forgotten . . . a world of playful fantasy full of incredible ideas. All her paintings are lovely, like Annette. Only Annette could, it appears, conjure forth this magic art from her palette and tousled mane, as a magician brings forth rabbits and doves from his hat.”
The show was a huge success; she had good publicity, sold many paintings, and was featured in the newspaper Novedades as the Woman of the Week. One of the paintings sold served as inspiration for a painting now in the Fine Arts Museum collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Annette’s happiness at her achievement—one of few women to be shown in the gallery at the time—was dimmed by jealous rumors that she had “paid” for the show and the subsequent boycott of it by people she had thought were friends. The pain of that betrayal made her vow she would never show again in Mexico. But nothing stood in the way of continuing to make art the center of her world.
NOTE: In the late 1990s, after attending a private birthday party in New York City to celebrate surrealist painter Leonora Carrington’s 80th birthday, I received an invitation to tour the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, which by then was open by appointment or invitation only, to see original works by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, María Izquierdo, Leonora Carrington, and many others. It was a dream come true. While there I acquired a Carrington lithograph that still takes center stage in my home and I enjoy it every day. — Rosemary Carstens
Two of Annette’s paintings from her one-woman show and a photograph of Inez Amor with some of the artists she represented.
