Martha Mood (1908-1972), "First Family", tapestry

Martha Mood (1908-1972), "First Family", tapestry, 48 x 34"

Martha Mood, artist, photographer, and teacher, was born in Oakland, California, on June 21, 1908.
She studied art at the University of California at Berkeley where she earned a bachelor's degree with honors in 1931. After the war she married Beaumont Mood, a Texas photographer, and settled with him in Dallas. She began ceramics lessons in 1946, but her artistic activities were curtailed by an auto accident in 1947. She suffered serious injuries to her face and jaw that required extensive plastic surgery. In 1952 she and her husband moved to San Antonio, where she developed her skills as a stitchery artist. Initially she worked as an art teacher in public schools and at the San Antonio Art Institute. After a successful collaboration with architect O'Neil Ford, she established a business in which she produced lighting fixtures, fountains, pottery, and other architectural design objects with the help of her husband. The Witte Museum mounted two solo exhibitions of Martha Mood's work during this period, featuring her photographs in 1953 and her ceramic sculptures in 1957. Flowers, children, nudes, and wild and domestic animals were frequent themes in her wall hangings. As her reputation grew, she was commissioned to make appliques for clients such as Mr. and Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. John B. Connally, Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil Ford, and other prominent Texans. After 1967 she was represented by Lester Kierstead Henderson, a Monterey, California, art dealer who paid her a salary in exchange for receiving most of her work. In 1967 Mood's applique stitcheries were exhibited at the Witte Museum, and she received the San Antonio Art League's "Artist of the Year" award; she was the first worker in crafts to be so honored. Her reputation continued to grow after her death. In 1975, in response to public interest in Mood's work, Henderson organized an exhibition of thirty-eight Mood stitcheries and tapestries that traveled to a number of locations around the country, including the Rockford Arts and Science Center in Rockford, Illinois; the Charleston Art Gallery of Sunrise, Charleston, West Virginia; the Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin; and the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio. Her works are in the collections of the McNay Museum, the San Antonio Art League, Trinity University, and numerous private collections.
Condition Report: Very good