Walter, R. Locke, The Net-Mender 37. Etching, 8 1/2 by 10 inches.
An enigmatic figure, Walter Locke had a studio on the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs from 1935 to his death in 1949. His etchings are some of the most sensitive and beautiful done in Florida.
Locke was an artist with a national reputation for his etchings, thousands were published by the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York City. On back of each of his etchings a brief biography reads, “W.R. Locke spent twelve years actually living and working in the woods, without ever once coming out to a civilized center. Locke loves trees and spends his summers with them in the hill country, and his winters with them in the South depicting them in copper. His work catches the hot atmosphere of the southern climate and the clear sharp coldness of the north. His works are often the results of months of study, and of an almost impossible amount of hard work, so that every least bit of foliage may be accurate and detailed. The thousands of tiny lines in hundreds of tones serve to accentuate the Japanese effect of his prints. Yet they do not lack in freeness and artistic conception of design and have a simplicity which reflects his own meticulous care in its production. Locke received his art training under Louis Kronberg and Alfred Hutty.”
Walter, R. Locke, Mullet Fisherman, Fla., 1937, Etching, 9 by 12 inches.
The January 1940 issue of American Home Magazine had a two-page spread of Locke’s Old Don Toledo House, a view in St. Augustine. The St. Petersburg Times, December 5, 1948, “Locke recently has been specializing in watercolors…Most of these are Florida scenes. The watercolors carry a great deal of detail, probably influenced by his etchings. These are noticed in particular in his boat scenes, where sawgrass, sail and the boats themselves are given serious contemplation. ‘Break in the Clouds’ shows the play of sun through the clouds; ‘Morning on the Anclote,’ made near Tarpon Springs, conveys real feeling. There is excellent motion in the gull’s flight in the picture, ‘On the Gulf’ and a good play of shadow in the wide-spreading tree shown in ‘Florida Hickory.’”
Walter, R. Locke, Anclote Light, Fla. Etching, 8 3/8 by 12 3/8 inches.
The man seems to have shunned publicity. He spent the winters in Florida from at least 1935 to his death in 1949 yet, despite his etchings being widely exhibited, there was almost no press coverage of his work. When he died there was no obituary. Locke lived a Thoreau like life in the woods with his beloved trees. He is listed in Falk’s Who Was Who in American Art and represented in more than fourteen public collections including the Library of Congress, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg, the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, Yale University Art Gallery and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
Born: February 13, 1883, Winchester, Massachusetts. Died: April 5, 1949, Pinellas County, Florida. Education: With Louis Kronberg; Alfred Hutty. Membership: Florida Federation of Art; Clearwater Art Club; Clearwater Art Museum; Art Club of St. Petersburg; Florida Gulf Coast Artist Group; Society of American Etchers; Association of American Artists. Exhibits: Clearwater Art Club, Chamber of Commerce Building, Clearwater, March 1935, Florida etchings, White Oak, A Greek Sponge Boat; Clearwater Art Club, Clearwater Art Museum, February 1936; Art Club of St. Petersburg 1938, 1st prize, etching; Florida Federation of Art, Circuit Show, 1939-40; St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, November 1940 with 40 Pinellas County artists; Florida Federation of Art, December,1941, Tampa, etching, Palmettos; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1941-42, Pelican Key; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Exhibit, Palm Beach, December 1942, outstanding work in other media, The Patriarch; Clearwater Art Museum, 8th Annual Members Exhibit, February 1942, etchings, Chinaberry Tree, Palmettos; Art Club of St. Petersburg, 1942-43; Clearwater Art Museum, 9th Annual Exhibit, March 1943; Florida Federation of Art, 16th Annual, St. Petersburg, December 1943, 1st prize, etching, Red Oak; Clearwater Art Museum, Florida Gulf Coast Artist Group, 4th Annual, exhibit toured the state, 1944-1945; Florida Gulf Coast Group, sponsorship of Clearwater Art Museum, 4th Annual Exhibit and nationwide circuit, July 1945 to May 1946, watercolors, Sponge Boats, Sudden Shower, etchings, Eucalyptus, Back Country, Pelican Key, The Old Mulberry Tree; Florida Federation of Art, 19th Annual Exhibition, Miami Beach, December 7, 1945, Grey Day in Florida, best etching, Windswept Palmettos; Clearwater Art Museum, February 1946, 2nd prize, watercolor, Shipwrecked; Clearwater Art Museum, Florida Gulf Coast Group, 5th Annual, 1946, etchings, Back Country, Eucalyptus; National Academy Galleries, 31st Annual Exhibit, Society of American Etchers, New York City, 1946; Florida Federation of Art, Annual Circuit, 1946; Florida State Fair, Tampa, February 1946, award; Florida State Fair, Tampa, February 1947, blue ribbon, professional watercolor; Art Club of St. Petersburg, April 1947, one man exhibition, etchings and watercolors; Florida Gulf Coast Group, Clearwater Art Museum, 5th Annual, nation wide circuit, July 1946-May 1947, watercolor, Back Country, etchings, Eucalyptus-Florida, Chinaberry Tree; Florida Gulf Coast Group, Clearwater Art Museum, 6th Annual, nationwide circuit, July 1947-May 1948, etching, Cormorant Rookery; Florida Gulf Coast Group, sponsorship, Clearwater Art Museum, 7th annual nationwide circuit, July 1948 to May 1949, watercolor, Watch Tower-Ft. Marion-Fla.; Art Club of St. Petersburg, watercolors, Break in the Clouds, Morning on the Anclote, On the Gulf, Florida Hickory; Florida State Fair, Tampa, February 1949, 2nd prize, watercolor, landscape, 1st prize, marine; Gulf Coast Art Museum, 1949.
