Mary Boggs
{{short description|American muralist}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Mary Boggs
|image = Mary_Ross_Boggs_(aka_Mary_Ross_Townley).jpg
|caption = Boggs in 1946
|birth_name = Mary Ross
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1920|7|3}}
|birth_place = St. Johnsbury, Vermont
|death_date = {{Death date and age|2002|6|4|1920|7|3}}
|death_place = Bethel, Vermont
|nationality = American
|other_names = Mary Ross Boggs, Mary Ross Townley
|occupation = artist, writer
}}
Mary Boggs (July 3, 1920 – June 4, 2002), also known as Mary Ross Boggs and in her later career as a writer as Mary Ross Townley, was an American muralist and textbook author. She participated in the art projects for the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture creating the post office mural for Newton, Mississippi, and a collection of her watercolors was held at the Carville Marine Hospital.
Early life
Mary Ross was born on July 3, 1920, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont to Dorothy (née Ashley) and Ralph Ross.{{sfn|Brazil Immigration Cards|1946}} She was the granddaughter of Dr. George H. Ashley of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Boggs studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.{{sfn|The Evening News|1941|p=18}}
Career
Prior to her marriage, Ross had begun working as a New Deal artist and had won a commission.{{sfn|The Evening News|1941|p=18}} She married Franklin Boggs on December 21, 1940, in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and the couple subsequently had four children.{{sfn|The Janesville Daily Gazette|July 29, 1958|p=2}} In 1941, she and Franklin, who were living in Knoxville, Tennessee, won the competition to complete "Economic Life in Newton in the Early 1940s" for the post office mural in Newton, Mississippi.{{sfn|The Evening News|1941|p=18}} The painting was completed as an oil on canvas and then applied to the post office wall.{{sfn|The Evening News|1941|p=18}}{{sfn|The Living New Deal|2015}} That same year, her watercolor "Children's Sunday" was selected for an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art.{{sfn|Whitney Museum of American Art|1941|p=9}}
After the New Deal art projects ended, the couple moved to Wisconsin, where by 1958, Franklin was the chair of the Art department at Beloit College. The Wright Museum of Art there houses her Judy and Summer (1951).{{cite web|last1=Boggs|first1=Mary|title=Judy and Summer|url=https://www.beloit.edu/wright/collections/portraiture/?image_id=291007|publisher=Wright Museum of Art|access-date=7 September 2017|date=1951|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908021133/https://www.beloit.edu/wright/collections/portraiture/?image_id=291007|archive-date=8 September 2017|url-status=dead}} Boggs taught art classes for the Beloit Art League and traveled extensively throughout Argentina and Mexico. She exhibited works in Philadelphia, Beloit, Milwaukee, Knoxville and Washington D.C. A collection of Boggs' watercolors were held by the Carville Marine Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, and she had works held in private collections.{{sfn|The Janesville Daily Gazette|March 10, 1958|p=5}} Boggs divorced Franklin in 1958 and later married Hugh Townley, who had left Beloit for Boston University.{{sfn|The Janesville Daily Gazette|July 29, 1958|p=2}}{{sfn|Brown|1972}} She changed her professional name to Mary Ross Townley and began publishing art textbooks.{{sfn|The Herald|2008}} A review of Another Look!, a 1978 curriculum-kit of art textbooks for younger children and their teachers, gives some insight into Mary Ross Townley's concern with imparting the fundamentals of art and the development of visual awareness by a structured, sequenced programme of work, building on itself.{{sfn|Art Education|April 1978|p=28}} In 1989, when her husband retired from Brown University, they moved to Bethel, Vermont.{{sfn|Brown|1972}}
Death and legacy
Townley died on June 4, 2002, in Bethel, Vermont.{{sfn|The Pennsylvania Gazette|2004}}
References
=Citations=
{{Reflist|30em}}
=Bibliography=
{{refbegin|30em}}
- {{cite web|last1=Brown |first1=Robert F. |title=Oral history interview with Hugh Townley, 1972 June 5 and July 24 |url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-hugh-townley-12525 |website=Archives of American Art |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=5 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160822210306/http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-hugh-townley-12525 |archive-date=22 August 2016 |location=Washington, D. C. |date=1972 |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Janesville Daily Gazette|July 29, 1958}}|author=|title=Art Professor Sued by Wife|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5182860/art_professor_sued_by_wife_janesville/|access-date=5 March 2017|work=The Janesville Daily Gazette|date=July 29, 1958|location=Janesville, Wisconsin|page=2|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
- {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Brazil Immigration Cards|1946}}|author=|title=Brasil, Cartões de Imigração, 1900-1965|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95T6-4BC?mode=g&i=93&cc=1932363|date=May 16, 1946|website=FamilySearch|publisher=Arquivo Nacional|access-date=5 March 2017|location=Rio de Janeiro, Brasil|language=Portuguese|id=Digital Folder #4907703, image #94}}
- {{cite report|ref={{harvid|Whitney Museum of American Art|1941}}|author=|title=Exhibition of Two Hundred American Watercolors: Selected from a National Competition Held by the Section of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.|url=https://archive.org/stream/exhibitionoftwoh00whit#page/n9/mode/2up/search/Mary+Ross|date=September 30, 1941|publisher=Whitney Museum of American Art|location=New York City, New York}}
- {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Herald|2008}} |title=Hugh Townley |url=http://www.ourherald.com/news/2008-02-07/Obituaries/o01.html |access-date=5 March 2017 |work=The Herald |date=February 7, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170305231518/http://www.ourherald.com/news/2008-02-07/Obituaries/o01.html |archive-date=5 March 2017 |location=Randolph, Vermont |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Janesville Daily Gazette|March 10, 1958}}|author=|title=Mary Ross Boggs, Artist, Speaker for Art League|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5182397/janesville_daily_gazette/|access-date=5 March 2017|work=The Janesville Daily Gazette|date=March 10, 1958|location=Janesville, Wisconsin|page=5|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
- {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Evening News|1941}}|author=|title=Mrs. Mary Ross Boggs|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5182591/mrs_mary_ross_boggs_the_evening_news/|access-date=5 March 2017|work=The Evening News|date=June 26, 1941|location=Harrisburg, Pennsylvania|page=18|via = Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}
- {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Pennsylvania Gazette|2004}} |title=Obituaries |url=http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0904/0904obits.html |access-date=5 March 2017 |work=The Pennsylvania Gazette |date=September–October 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170305231518/http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0904/0904obits.html |archive-date=5 March 2017 |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite web|ref={{harvid|The Living New Deal|2015}} |title=Post Office Mural–Newton MS |url=http://livingnewdeal.org/projects/post-office-mural-newton-ms/ |website=The Living New Deal |publisher=Department of Geography, University of California |access-date=5 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150323124747/http://livingnewdeal.org/projects/post-office-mural-newton-ms/ |archive-date=23 March 2015 |location=Berkeley, California |date=2015 |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite journal|ref={{harvid|Art Education|April 1978}}|journal=Art Education|volume=31|date=April 1978|issue=4|first=David|last=Pariser|title=Another Look! Mary Ross Townley, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co|page=28|doi=10.1080/00043125.1978.11651931|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043125.1978.11651931}}
{{refend}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boggs, Mary}}
Category:People from St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Category:Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni
Category:American women artists
Category:Section of Painting and Sculpture artists