Emmaline Buchholtz, DeSoto Landing in Tampa Bay, Fla. Oil on board, 30 1/8 by 30 ¼ inches
Emmaline Buchholz was instrumental in founding the Gainesville Association of Fine Arts in 1923, and in 1927, the Florida Federation of Art. She was the Federation’s first president and the First Lady of Florida Art. In the fall of 1926 two Florida art clubs were interested in developing art appreciation in the state. A state wide art organization was fermenting in the minds of Buchholz, and members of the Gainesville Art Association. Simultaneously the members of the Orlando Art Association had the same idea. Ruby Warren Newby of the Orlando Art Association, suggested a meeting to form an association. An invitation was sent to Gainesville. The Gainesville Art Association voted to invite Orlando artists and club representatives to Gainesville, when the invitation from Orlando arrived. Gainesville accepted the invitation and on April 7, 1927 a first meeting was held in Orlando at the Albertson Public Library. A committee was appointed to form a Federation of Art Clubs in Florida. Emmaline Buchholz was elected the first president of the Florida Federation of Art.
Buchholz remained an important figure in art appreciation, and development in Gainesville, and throughout Florida, for many years. An article in the Gainesville Sun in March of 1931 by Mrs. Ernest Atkin, describes Buchholz, “Gainesville’s foremost artist’ and her work at the first local, ‘one man show’ held in Gainesville, under the auspices of The Gainesville Association of Fine Arts. ‘Anne of the Lupines,’ the last of the portrait group, is, I think, in point of technique and execution, the best. The background and subject are in complete harmony, the play of light and shadow, and the freshness of tone, as well as the freedom of brush strokes, in the tradition of the Impressionist movement, and a great advance over the flatness of the conventional portrait style. It has convincing virility. ‘The Stubborn Glebe’ and ‘The Lowering Herd,’ are the sympathetic interpretations of animal and farm life. ‘Always Afternoon’ is a pastel painting of Payne’s Prairie, near the home of the artist, and like the land of the lotus eaters, it has that sense of brooding sun and silence among Egyptian lotus blossoms.”
Other exhibits of Buchholz’s work in Gainesville brought the following comments: “Among the portraits of this exhibit in the Municipal Building, none attracted so much attention as the recently painted one of the artist’s father, Dr. L. W. Buchholz, one of the oldest and best-loved educators of Florida. There is a charcoal study of an old colored mammy that simply spells resignation, while another, ‘The Parson’s Wife,’ shows complacency and superiority, very natural in one occupying that exalted station. ‘The Woodland of the Wier’ is probably the best of the landscapes in oil; the shadowy forest glade produces a wonderful effect of light and color, difficult to express but masterfully executed.” This landscape won first prize at the 1929 exhibit of the Florida Federation of Art. In the December 8, 1933-June 30, 1934, Report of the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to Federal Emergency Relied Administration for Region No. 5, Buchholz is listed as a participating artist.
In 1935 the Sarasota Art Association and the Ringling School of Art invited Buchholz to present a one woman exhibit of her paintings at the school. The Sarasota Herald, June 13, 1935, reviewed the exhibit, “Emmaline Buchholz shows twenty of her oils, all of her work being of Florida subjects. She has, through close association with the ways of its native people, caught a real flavor of truth in her interpretation of her home state. Her work deals with what is everywhere, the Negro and his shanty, the farmer and his fields, the river and its jungles. There is much of the imaginative and the mystery of nature in her work, expressed through the eyes of an artist who sees as a poet, with quietness and dignity. Pictures such as ‘Recreation,’ ‘Dobbin,’ ‘Old Folks at Home,’ and ‘Barnyard Medley,’ show not only her attractive sense of color and interesting arrangement of composition, but also bring out the wit and humor that makes her work distinctive. Mrs. Buchholz has won many honors in the art world and has exhibited throughout the country, her subjects of Negro life being very popular, and well received wherever she exhibits them. One finds in her work sincerity of purpose, sound ability, a rare fearlessness of approach and a versatility that gives the display a high standard of esthetic appeal.”
Born: Ormondsville, North Carolina (near Greenville.)
Education: Randolph Macon College; Art Institute of Chicago; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; Scholarship, Grand Central School of Art Summer School, Eastport, Maine, 1929.
Membership: Florida Federation of Art, first president and honorary life president; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, co-founder; Palm Beach Art League, Honorary Member.
Exhibits: Florida Federation of Art, 1st Annual Convention and Exhibit, Gainesville, March 1928, honorable mention, Portrait of Frauline; Gainesville City Hall, May 1929, one woman exhibit; Portrait of Jennie Henderson Murphree, wife of University of Florida president, Albert A. Murphree, unveiled in Jennie Henderson Hall, Florida State College for Women, May 1929; Florida Federation of Art, Gainesville, 1929, 2nd Annual, Fairy Mist, Woodland of Weir, 1st award for Anne of the Lupines; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuit, Tampa Art Institute, Municipal Auditorium, Tampa, January 1931, The Lowing Herd; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, one woman show, March 1931, twenty-six canvases, including, Anne of the Lupines, The Stubborn Glebe, The Lowing Herd, Always Afternoon; Florida Federation of Art, Palm Beach Art League, March 1931, fourteen paintings, including, Dahlias, Portrait of a Friend; Florida Federation of Art, annual circuit, 1933, best portrait, Elizabeth; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Convention, St. Petersburg, December 1933. Best painting of a typical Florida subject, oil, Fathoming Depths (A Seminole Indian scene.); Live Oak Woman’s Club, one woman exhibit, October 1933; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, new studio, 131 Union Street, Gainesville, February 9, 1934; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuit, 1935, oil, Fathoming Depths; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, Twentieth Century Club, January 6, 1936; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, 1st Art Mart, Courthouse Square, December 19, 1936; Florida Federation of Art, 11th Annual Exhibition, St. Augustine, December 2-5, 1937, Labors are Few, Peacock; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, American Art Week, November 1938, club studio, Anticipation; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, prize for Beaux Arts Ball, February 29, 1940, at the Woman’s Club, on display in the gift shop on East Main Street, Reproduction of Betsy Ross’ Home in Philadelphia; Washington Art Studio, Miami Beach, April 1941, Florida Room; Washington Art Studio, Miami Beach, August 1942, Gainesville paintings; Washington Art Studio, Palm Beach branch, Fall 1942; Florida Federation of Art, Miami Beach, 19th Annual, December 7, 1945, Cypress Swamp, Close of Day; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, March 1948, Over the Hill; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, one woman exhibit, March 1951; St. Augustine Art Association, January 1952, honorable mention, watercolor, Our Home Our All; Roberts-Buchholz Exhibit, home of Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Hamilton Tying, Long Island and Newport; The Studio Club, Annual Art and Crafts Exhibition, New York, blue ribbon.
Collections: Florida State College for Women; University of Florida; State Library, Tallahassee. Listed in Who’s Who in American Art.
