Discoveroom exhibition featuring Florence Sossaman Koch, Beulah Watts, and Allie Mae Arnett Welch
The Discoveroom of the Museum of East Texas is featuring the works of three East Texas artists: Florence Sossaman Koch, Beulah Watts, and Allie Mae Arnett Welch. These three artists grew up in the area and eventually settled in Lufkin during their lifetimes. While Koch started painting in her pre-married life, she, Watts, and Welch all became prolific artists in the later years of their lives, after their children had grown and raised families of their own.
We hope this exhibit encourages you to explore creating art, no matter your age! It’s a wonderful way to express yourself and your view of the world you see. It’s never too early or too late to pick up a paintbrush.
Special thanks to Len Medford, who curated this show and brought together so many pieces from family and friends of the artists. We are grateful for her dedication to the Museum of East Texas.
Florence Sossaman Koch
Florence Sossaman Koch was born July 17, 1903, in San Augustine, Texas to Clara Belle (Thomas) and Clinton O’Brien Sossaman. She graduated from Oak Cliff High School in Dallas and Baylor University in Waco, with a degree in Music. There she met her husband Victor George (V. G.) Koch, an engineer from Missouri, and on September 11, 1924, they were married at the Austin Avenue Methodist Church in Waco. After moving to Lufkin, Florence and V. G. raised two children, Dr. John C. Koch and Lena Belle (Peachy) Koch Denman.
As evidenced by her signature, she began painting in her pre-married days; some are signed F Sossaman. She was a long-time member of the First Methodist Church, the Historical and Literary Club, the Lufkin Music Study Club, and the Lufkin Art Guild. Always creative, she taught piano lessons and played the piano for various churches and clubs over the years. She was an avid outdoorsman and hunter, thus many of her works featured outdoor and woodsy settings with majestic pine trees. One of her largest pine paintings hung in the stairway of the Hotel Angelina as one approached the Mirror Room, the hotel’s ballroom. Other paintings decorated and were proudly displayed “for sale” at Petty’s Restaurant.
She passed away September 11, 1985, and is buried in The Garden of Memories in Lufkin. Many of her descendants live in Lufkin; most of her artwork is on loan from those family members.
Beulah Watts
Landscape painter Beulah Watts was born July 13, 1872, in Homer, Texas, and spent her formative years there. Although her mother instilled an appreciation of the beauty of nature in East Texas (which would later show itself in Watts's emphasis on wildflowers and pine trees), Watts received little encouragement in art as a talented child. Essentially self-taught, Watts would study briefly with Houston painters Emma Richardson Cherry and Hattie Palmer.Around 1912, when she was forty years old, Watts began to paint the pine tree scenes for which she is most recognized. As her children had grown, Watts painted area wildflowers, many on china. She married Reuben Vale Watts, later sheriff of Angelina County, in 1889, when she was seventeen and he was thirty-four. They lived in Lufkin, Texas, where she raised her two children, and where she would remain for life. When her husband died in 1927, financial necessity forced her to commercialize her work to meet the medical bills her son's illness created.She was well-known during her lifetime for her paintings of pines, exhibiting them in galleries and libraries in Chicago, New York, and on the Pacific Coast. One hung at the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, in Chicago, while another, Angelina Pines, was shown in the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, Dallas. In 1986, the Museum of East Texas put on a major one-person exhibition of Watts's paintings. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of East Texas and in many personal collections. Beulah Watts died July 29, 1941, in Lufkin, Texas.
References for Beulah Watts's life and art include: Fisk; Lufkin News, 18 Apr 1932, 16 Aug 1936, 30 Jul 1941, 11 Jul 1947, 5 Jan 1972, 28 Jun 1986; Kurth Memorial Library files, Lufkin; US Census 1880, Angelina County, TX, ED 8, pg 4; US Census 1900, Angelina County, TX, ED 1, pg 4; death record; J. W. Wilkins (Kurth Memorial Library, Lufkin), 1988; L. C. Strange, Jr. (grandson), 1989, 1993; C. Ricks (Gipson Funeral Services, Lufkin), 1994.Source:Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, "An Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West"
Allie Mae Arnett Welch
Allie Mae Arnett was born on May 31, 1891, at Odell Creek near Huntington, Texas. She married RV Welch, Sr. on January 30, 1909, in Angelina County, Texas. They had four children in 15 years.
Shortly after Allie Mae’s daughter was married in 1944, she went to live with her daughter and son-in-law and helped raise her grandchildren. As part of this three-generation home, Allie Mae was often the main cook for the family. She enjoyed gardening - specifically raising African Violets as well as charitable work through the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and the Ladies of Leisure.
Over the years, Allie Mae suffered from osteoarthritis and ended up with severe mobility issues. It was during this time that she started looking for a hobby that she could do within the confines of her home. She became enamored with the artwork of Grandma Moses and thought “if she can do it, so can I.” Thusly, in the late 1950’s, she started taking painting lessons from Opal Cobb – another East Texas artist.
Landscapes and still life were Allie Mae’s focus. Never looking for benefit from her paintings other than the joy of the art, many of her paintings were given as gifts to family and friends. Her paintings are on loan from many of those family members.
She died on February 12, 1973, in Lufkin, Texas, at the age of 81, and was laid to rest in Historic Hillcrest Cemetery.
We hope that our visitors will take a free copy of The Primitive Art of a Native Texan, about Ruby Yount, another East Texas female artist who discovered her talent later in life after her six children had grown and moved away. This book is a gift for all, courtesy of the Young family and the Museum of East Texas.
Comments