Fortunately for all users of Coe’s Stewart Library, Conger Metcalf
created a collection of beautiful art that will nourish library
visitors for as long as the college survives. But Metcalf’s first
love was initially a more ephemeral art--music. When he received
his degree from Coe in 1936, it was a Bachelor of Music. His
father was a gospel singer and his mother a pianist at the Sunshine
Mission, and music was important to his entire family, including three
brothers who also attended Coe. Both the music and the spirit of
Christian mission and concern for the poor can be traced throughout
Metcalf’s career. Metcalf insisted that “the greatest teachers I
ever had were at Coe,” and the first to be named would be his piano
instructor, Grace Swab. Metcalf never lost his love for the
piano: “I love to play the piano–it’s like talking.” But Metcalf
also suffered from a paralyzing stage fright when forced to perform in
public, and so his friend and teacher, Grace Swab, advised him to
concentrate on developing his skills as a draughtsman and painter.
Metcalf did study art with Marvin Cone and Grant Wood at Stone City.
But concerning any possible influence of Wood, Conger said, "The dear
man, he taught me nothing. Just nothing. Zero."
Perhaps part of the problem was Wood’s regionalism. Although
Metcalf always thought of himself as an Iowan, he once remarked in an
interview that “I never saw anything I wanted to paint there.”
Fortunately for Metcalf, there was Boston, his adopted home after
graduating from Coe. His brother was enjoying a career as a radio
singer, and Metcalf began his Boston career as a student at the School
of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Metcalf did return to Coe in the 1939-40 academic year to teach
painting, drawing, and art history while Marvin Cone was enjoying a
one-year sabbatical. Shortly before his death, Cone wrote the
following analysis of Metcalf’s work:
His drawings and paintings reveal a
penetrating and selective vision which transforms objective reality
into lyrical and imaginative material, but always with great respect
for pictorial structure. Rare skill in selective draftsmanship
records universal gestures, attitudes, and the illuminating
expressiveness of the human face. We see a mind always open to
new and exciting impressions and a heart with warm interest in humanity.
Although
Metcalf would frequently return to Iowa for short visits, most of his
life would be spent in Boston. In addition to short teaching
stints at the Boston Museum School and the Dexter School in Brookline,
he was on the faculty of Boston University’s School of Fine and Applied
Arts from 1956 to 1976.
The collection of his work at Coe began when President Joseph McCabe
attended one of Conger Metcalf's shows at the old Cedar Rapids Public
Library. Metcalf told McCabe to choose a work, which he would
then donate to Coe. Marvin Cone was also at that opening, and
together he and McCabe chose the painting Miki Reading for the
college's collection.
Metcalf and McCabe later came to an agreement: Metcalf would set aside
his greatest work of the year, and McCabe would find a donor to
purchase it for Coe College. In this way Miki Reading became
the start of a collection of almost 50 works, now housed in and around
the two galleries in Stewart Memorial Library. These galleries on
the second floor, the Metcalf and Pashgian Galleries, are named for
Metcalf and for Reva and John Pashgian of Pasadena, California. The
Pashgians' son donated the floor rug in the adjacent Perrine Gallery as
well the Portuguese hand-loomed rya-style rugs used in the two smaller
galleries. The Perrine Gallery, which connects to both of the
smaller galleries, houses Coe's Grant Wood collection.
Unlike Cone and Wood, the other painters who have notable collections
of their paintings in Coe’s library, Metcalf’s favorite medium was not
a traditional painting surface but rather cameo paper, a soft paper
with a surface of fine clay. In his eulogy for Metcalf,
given in Sinclair Auditorium in April of 1998, John Brown, Coe’s
Chancellor and friend of the artist, recalled the impressions of a
journalist watching Metcalf work with this difficult medium (a
challenge exacerbated by his arthritic hands): “When I see you doing
this, I feel like I have been watching Matisse draw.” Metcalf’s
wit was evident in his quick rely: “I wish I had seen Matisse draw.”
In terms of both style and substance, Metcalf’s life and art was
transformed when, as a soldier during World War II, he traveled through
Italy, particularly the cities of Naples and Florence. He
would make twenty more trip to Florence. The impact of
Italy goes far beyond a fascination with frames available for purchases
(he once bought over 400 frames in Florence during a two-year
period). Italy and its people permeate his paintings: the
use of earth colors, the landscapes, the shadows, the still lifes, the
colors (sienna and burnt oranges and antique blues), the exquisite
modeling of human anatomy, the portraits of indigent children,
the small drawings around human figures (almost like Italian
graffiti). According to Kathryn Schultz of the Cambridge Art
Association, writing about Metcalf following his 80th
birthday, “His manners, speech, dress, the food he invariably offers
from a [tiny] kitchen . . . all suggest a backward step into a 17th
century Venetia Court. The furnishings of his home, a collection
of objects and furniture acquired over this lifetime of ‘knowing how to
see,’ are backdrops for his paintings.’”
In a twenty-year period from 1973 to 1992, Coe hosted ten Metcalf
exhibitions, including the retrospective show that was a collaboration
between the college and the Athenaeum in Boston. When Metcalf
would visit Coe, he would bring with him an entourage of friends.
As his friend John Brown describes it, “When Conger came it was like
Elizabeth I on a Royal Progress in the 16th Century, except
Conger stopped at your home to GIVE presents: cologne, perfume, Belgian
truffles, flowers, ties, bolts of cloth, paintings, corn chowder
recipes, Iowa chops.” Perhaps Metcalf was correct: he was an
Iowan after all.
