Elsie Martinez Portrait Sketches, with others.

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Books, Art, and Ephemera

By Turner Auctions + Appraisals LLC

Oct 12, 2024

Set Reminder 2024-10-12 13:30:00 2024-10-12 13:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Books, Art, and Ephemera https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/turner-auctions/books-art-and-ephemera-16839
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• Lot Description
  [CALIFORNIA ARTISTS/BOHEMIANS.] A small collection of items related to ELSIE WHITAKER MARTINEZ (1890-1984), wife of artist XAVIER MARTINEZ (1869-1943); their daughter, artist MICAELA MARTINEZ (1913-1989); and Elsie's partner, HARRIET DEAN (1892-1964). 1.) Pencil sketch of Elsie Martinez ("Pellie Martinez"). Signed "J.A.(?) Perkins(?)," dated 5/29/77, Carmel. 7 1/4" x 5" (sight); 12 9 3/4" (frame). 2.-4.) Three pencil sketches, signed (unidentified), and inscribed/dated 1940, Carmel by the Sea; depicting Elsie Martinez, Micaela Martinez, and Harriet Dean. Each 12" x 9".  5.-7.) Three drawings by a young Micaela Martinez, including one signed (monogrammed) still life watercolor; a pencil/watercolor drawing of figures in the ocean; and a pencil sketch of whale(?) bones. 8.) Mark Twain Quarterly, Winter-Spring, 1942; signed/inscribed to Elsie Martinez from Cyril Clemens (a distant cousin of Samuel Clemens). 9.) Notebook with Harriet's miscellaneous notes (in her tight, somewhat challenging hand), which mostly appear to be on literary works (Cervantes, Anatole France, and letters of St. Teresa),  10.) Typed manuscript (copy?) of James Robinson Smith's "The Earliest Lives of Dante," which appears to have proofing/review notes by Harriet. ELSIE WHITAKER was the daughter of author/journalist Herman Whitaker (1867-1919) and grew up among her father's artistic and literary crowd in San Francisco and Oakland. As a child, she attended lectures and meetings at the Ruskin Club with her father and Jack London and was admired among her father's Bohemian set, becoming the subject of paintings, drawings, and photographs. When she was sixteen, she met painter Xavier "Marty" Martinez at the San Francisco Bohemian haunt, Coppa's Restaurant. After the 1906 earthquake, Martinez was among Whitaker's friends who took refuge at his property in the Piedmont hills. He and Elsie married soon after, and their daughter Micaela ("Kai") was born in 1913. HARRIET DEAN was from an Indianapolis, Indiana industrialist family, manufacturers of Dean's Pumps/Dean Brothers' Steam Pump Works. Her parents were Ward Hunt Dean and Nellie Moore Reed. Dean attended Vassar College, but in 1915 (before graduating) she joined Margaret Anderson's Little Review, a modernist literary magazine out of Chicago. Xavier ("Marty") and Elsie Martinez met Harriet Dean in 1916 while Harriet was working at the Little Review in San Francisco. When the magazine's brief stint in the City ended, Harriet stayed. After returning from a year abroad with Harriet in 1923, Elsie and her daughter, Kai, moved in with her. From this period onward (in Piedmont, then Carmel), Elsie and Harriet cared for and stayed close to Marty, becoming "A two-house family" (see Elsie's oral history, "Artists and Writers of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bancroft Library, 1962-1969:99, 101, etc.). MICAELA "KAI" MARTINEZ grew up among her parents' artistic Bohemian milieu. Kai began drawing as a child with her father, and as a young girl developed an interest in religious/Catholic themes. As a teenager, she took classes at the California School of Arts and Crafts (CCAC/CCA) in Oakland, and with sculptor Ralph Stackpole at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. She also studied with muralist Victor Arnautauff, and later stonework with Ruth Cravath. Following her studies, she painted the library murals for the Franciscans in San Francisco, painted fresco murals for the seminarian's library at the San Luis Rey Mission, created Stations of the Cross paintings and sculptures for the cloisters of the Franciscan Sisters, and altar/mural at the U.S. Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Monterey. She was also a stagecraft artist/set painter, and later taught liturgical art classes at the San Francisco College for Women at Lone Mountain, and lectured at Holy Names University in Oakland. In 1944 she married painter Ralph DuCasse (1940-2003), and had two daughters. They eventually divorced, and Kai remained at the family's Piedmont house, where she maintained her studio to the end of her life. PROVENANCE: Acquired from the Turner Auctions + Appraisals sale, "The Bohemian World of Xavier Martinez," February 25, 2023, featuring property from The Family of Xavier Martinez (1869-1943), Elsie Whitaker Martinez (1890-1984), and Micaela Martinez DuCasse (1913-1989).  
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