mystery solved

click to enlarge

It must be the artist in me that draws me to the human face. Given the choice of a landscape, still life, or portrait, I will always pick a portrait, hands down.  So, it's no surprise several are scattered here and there about the manor.  (Click here and here for previous portrait posts.)  Last month, when my daughter was visiting, we took a little excursion to our favorite antique center.  I came home with an quirky unsigned 1960s era portrait of a young man.  I was drawn to his melancholy expression and soft earth tones.

Sara Carr, 1960
on the roof
of the Trautman Building

This week, when we took the in-law gang antiquing, I happened onto a stack of portraits in the same vendor's booth where I found the young man, and obviously by the same artist.  Most of them were signed by Sara Carr.  I chose a lovely dark haired woman, dated March 25, 1958.  After the family left, and the manor was quiet again, my investigative juices took over, and I did a bit of online sleuthing.  As it turns out, Sara Carr was a local Columbus, Ohio impressionistic artist who graduated in 1930 from the predecessor of the Columbus College of Art & Design.  She had a studio in the five story Trautman Building at 203 South High Street. In exchange for the use of a rural cottage owned by Warner Trautman, Carr painted a 25 foot panoramic mural of downtown Columbus, for the lobby of his building, in 1960.

Now that I know the background of the artist, it makes her paintings even more special. It's nice to think I have some of Carr's work, as well as a bit of Columbus history, sprinkled about the manor.  I've got to take a little trip downtown to see if I can find her mural.  Stay tuned.

detail of Carr's mural

Sara Carr, 1963, in her Columbus studio