In January 1949, when E. Roscoe Shrader retired from his thirty-year career at the Los Angeles County Art Institute (previously the Otis Art Institute), he was honored not only for his commitment to teaching and to the institute but also for his contributions to the cultural enrichment of the city of Los Angeles. At a banquet held in Shrader’s honor, County Supervisor John Anson Ford presented him with a certificate naming him dean emeritus of the institution. In a letter to the board of supervisors, Shrader expressed appreciation for the honor bestowed on him and further stated, “And I feel I can take pride in the reputation the school has gained throughout the country for fine art training and in the achievements and cultural influence of its hundreds of loyal present and former students.”
  Later that year, in April and May, Shrader exhibited paintings at the Altadena Town and Country Club in what was noted to be his first one-person show in ten years. His artist-friends, including Norman Rockwell, were on hand at a celebratory banquet. The Pasadena Star-News published an account of the dinner and wrote of Shrader’s work:
  He is best known as a painter of California sunlight; the play of scintillating light over the figure posed out of doors, and is remarkable for his ability in handling groups of figures in movement, with vibrant, glowing color. His brush and palette are tools used for freedom of expression and in perfect control. He communicates the feeling that his work is perfectly disciplined without hint of “futuristic” wanderings down the strange paths of exploration. There is no feeling, or sense of personal indulgence. His touch is sure and true.
  To travel with Shrader through the California scene is enough to cause the All Year Club to look to its laurels; children playing all over a wrecked fishing barge cast up on the beach, a crowd gathered around a movie cast on location, “The Pageant of a Mountain Camp,” grape pickers in a vineyard, are only a few of the subjects that have inspired his brush.
  The painting described as “a crowd gathered around a movie cast on location” was one of Shrader’s most important works, Hollywood (1922). His wife, Elisabeth Shrader, later wrote that although the work had been widely exhibited, her husband had never wanted to sell it. The work can be seen as a summation of all the qualities that Shrader brought to his art, including his education in both illustration and fine painting. The painting tells a story—the hallmark of illustration—yet it is painted in the high-key palette and loose, gestural brushwork of post-impressionism.
  A study of Shrader’s work and of his life is a revelation. He was a witness to and a leader in the cultural flowering of Los Angeles over three decades—from the 1920s through the 1940s. His paintings, especially those that depict the figure or figures in outdoor settings, are remarkable, yet few are extant. Elisabeth wrote that her husband, “like Andrew Wyeth,” made only a few paintings each year, yet she gave no explanation for that fact. Closer study of Shrader the man reveals that his true passion was teaching. Perhaps that responsibility, combined with his leadership role with the California Art Club, for which he served several terms as president, consumed most of his energy. He was also a devoted family man. In 1927, Elisabeth wrote about their busy life with their three children, then eleven, six, and two years old. She added that Roscoe was “Dean of an Art School and in his spare moments (and several of mine) runs an Art Club, lends his aid to various cultural efforts, and paints a few pictures on the side.” The path that led Shrader to that busy life was an interesting one that began in Los Angeles, wound through Chicago, Wilmington, Delaware, and New Hope, Pennsylvania, before returning to Los Angeles.

Early Life: Education and Family

  Edwin Roscoe Shrader, born in 1878, was the only son of a prominent Los Angeles family. His parents, Edwin Ruthven Shrader and Eva Mattison Shrader, moved to Los Angeles from Mount Sterling, Illinois, in 1885. His father, a graduate of Northwestern University, was the superintendent of public schools and had been an assistant professor and chair of natural science at Chaddock College in Quincy, Illinois. In Los Angeles, Shrader’s father assumed a professorship at the University of Southern California, where he was chairman of the physics and chemistry department. In 1890, he resigned from his position at USC and, with two associates, founded the Los Angeles Business College.
  Two facets of the elder Shrader’s career—education and business—would greatly influence his son as he pursued a career that encompassed art, education, and business. Concurrent with attending Los Angeles High School, the young Shrader studied at his father’s newly founded school, graduating in 1895, when he was just sixteen. Although he was awarded his high school diploma in 1897 with a major in science (thus following his father’s course), Shrader was already showing promise as an artist. In 1946, Shrader jokingly told a reporter that his pursuit of an art career began when his mother took him to see an art exhibition in Los Angeles, when he was a “toddler.” His mother, a pianist and singer, had also encouraged her children’s interest in music. Both Shrader and his younger sister Ada played string instruments—Ada, the violin, and Roscoe, the cello.
  Shrader recalled his high school days to Arthur Millier of the Los Angeles Times, who interviewed him for the feature “Our Artists in Person,” published in 1931.
  In those days Mrs. Bradfield taught art and Roscoe was her star pupil— sufficiently starry that he could sleep through or cut other nasty classes like physics and trigonometry. This automatically made him art editor of the summer ’97 “Blue and White,” published by the graduating class. Undoubtedly he drew a couple dancing with the legend “society” and a husky kicking a goal labeled “Football.” 
  Shrader also played the cello in the school orchestra. “But art was the dominant aim,” and, for a few years after graduation, Shrader worked “in offices” to save money and pursue an arts education. It has been noted that during this time he studied with “Prof. W. L. Judson” (William Lees Judson, founder of the art department at USC). For a couple of years, from 1900 to 1901, Shrader worked at his father’s business school in his first position as a teacher. 
  Shrader applied to and was admitted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1901. Records from the institute show that he was in both the Intermediate and Life Classes. Later he told Millier that he had studied with John C. Johansen and Thomas Wood Stevens. Stevens (1880–1942) was a mural painter and etcher who later served as the director of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. He was head of the illustration department at the institute and wrote two books on lettering. Johansen (1876–1964) was a painter of landscapes, portraits, and figures in interior settings who used multiple techniques, reflecting the influences of luminism, tonalism, and impressionism.
  That Shrader remembered these two teachers is a clear indication of the influence they had had on his work. Shrader returned to Los Angeles in 1904 after applying to study at the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art in Wilmington, Delaware. In August, he received a handwritten letter from Pyle, advising the aspiring artist that he was accepted. In September, Shrader received his first press notice in the Los Angeles Times, under the headline “Local Lad Wins, Los Angeles Art Student Receives High Credit for His Work in the East,” with the comment that it was a “high achievement for the Los Angeles boy” to be accepted in Pyle’s school. Shrader moved to Wilmington in the fall and studied at the school for two years, until it closed in 1906. He and other aspiring illustrators remained in Wilmington, continuing to receive criticism and direction from Pyle while they pursued careers as illustrators, during what has been called the Golden Age of Illustration (1880s–1920s). Shrader developed a career as a book and magazine illustrator, working for Harper’s, Century, and Scribner’s (see Phil Kovinick’s essay in this volume).
  While in Wilmington, Shrader’s social life included playing the cello with various musical groups and the Wilmington Orchestra (left). That he missed his family in California is apparent in a letter written to his aunts Ada and Lillie on an exceedingly hot day in July 1907, while he was feverishly working on an illustration for Harper’s.
  My dear Aunties—In much of a state of perspiration do I sit down to write you these lines. When it is hot here it does not leave you any room for doubt at all. But I realize that if I do not write you soon it would be a matter of my following very closely on my letter in person. That would be a matter of very bad taste if I could convince you that artists had any manners at all. I received your joint letter and was mighty glad to hear from you…. I am hurrying, Aunt Ada, as fast as I can. But I wonder if I will ever get over the feeling that the picture I am working on must be done with my best effort. This Harper work is important for more than one reason and I myself am surprised that I am able to give it any serious thought in the midst of all this excitement of getting West and this weather of sizzling thermometers. However I have been fortunate in having interesting models who fit the characters of the story very well and that is much gained. H. P. is grumbling about long vacations and shaking his fingers but he is not going to scare me out of this trip. It is just time that I see you all again and I am going to take my time about it. How much people miss by not seeing his originals. His reproductions in Harpers this month do not do him justice at all. I was out to see [N. C.] Wyeth at Chadd’s Ford Sunday last. He is out there for the summer and is doing some of his best work yet. Well, I will close with this sample portrait of me at my work. With much love until I see you. E. Roscoe.
  The little “sample portrait” is an amusing pen-and-ink sketch of the rather distraught artist with a palette in one hand and a fan in the other (right). How often Shrader visited California during his years in the East is not known. His work did bring him to the attention of Los Angeles Times art critic Antony Anderson, who mentioned the young artist in his “Art and Artists” column on April 12, 1908. Shrader had two works in an exhibition at the Woman’s Clubhouse in Hollywood; these were described by Anderson as “splendidly strong figure studies from life…. Mr. Shrader, who is still very young, promises to be one of the strongest of our American Illustrators.” The work reproduced in the article is that of a standing pirate, quite similar to the work shown on page 15.
  In summer 1909, the young artist went west and spent two months with his parents north of the Mojave Desert, where he painted and rested. Anderson again took note of the rapid advances made by the young artist, reporting in the Times on August 1, 1909, “Among the illustrating painters of talent who have left California for an eastern training I dare to assert that not one has made greater progress in a very short time than E. Roscoe Shrader.”1Shrader returned to Wilmington in October to begin work in earnest on several commissions, including a series of illustrations for a novel by Justin Huntly McCarthy, to be published by Harper and Brothers. He likely used paintings from his Mojave trip in one of his most important magazine contributions, an article he wrote and illustrated for Scribner’s in 1912. The essay, entitled “A Ditch in the Desert,” was Shrader’s account of the construction of the Los Angeles aqueduct (right).
  Upon his return to Delaware, Shrader moved to Claymont, staying in the historic structure known as Naamans-on-Delaware. His housemates were fellow Pyle students William Henry Dethlef Koerner, Percy Van Eman Ivory, and Herbert Moore. Shrader’s experience there would leave an indelible mark on the artist, and it is likely that the camaraderie they shared during those years influenced Shrader’s philosophy as a teacher and mentor to young artists (see Phil Kovinick’s essay).
  Music continued to play a major part in the young artist’s social life. Through his participation in the Wilmington Choral Society, he met Elisabeth Condit, the featured soloist. Elisabeth came from a prominent New York family and had graduated from Wellesley College in 1907. They began courting, and while Elisabeth was traveling abroad during the summer of 1910, she wrote to Shrader, signing her letter, “Affectionately, Bess.” Writing on a rainy July evening from the Hotel Victoria in Bingen am Rhein, Germany, Elisabeth revealed herself as someone who would prove to be an excellent life partner for the artist: “I’m here leaning out my window a long time, . . . The lights of the village across the river, and down, where it curves in sharply between the cliffs; the mountain tops covered with heavy fog, and the rain falling softly over the rose garden below. How I wish I could make you see it all.”Two years later, on June 18, 1912 hey were married at her parents’ home in Brooklyn, their wedding announced in the New York Times in its Sunday edition, on June 23. The young couple set off by train, heading west to meet Roscoe’s family. The elder Shraders joined them at the Grand Canyon. While en route on the California Limited, Elisabeth wrote to her family about the trip into the heart of the canyon and across the Mojave:
  We spent yesterday at the Canyon…. And such a day! We took the plateau trip—5 miles on mules—back down the steepest, narrowest trail I ever hope to see—one place we had to get off and walk because the trail was pure rock, and the mules couldn’t be depended on to keep their footing—and all the way down we had to brace ourselves back to keep from taking a header down the rocky sides. My beast “Bessie” had a lovely disposition, but some of the others acted up every once in a while—and there wasn’t much room for that either. It was certainly a great trip. We had half an hour for lunch on a rocky ridge 1200 ft still above the sluggish muddy Colorado—and all the rest of the time from 10:30 to 5:30 was spent on the trail.
  We are crossing the Mojave Desert now—mountains all about us up the distance—huge masses of rock, with no suggestion of trees or grass—and nearer the plains, with its sand and clumps of sagebrush. The weather is still perfect, no dust, and even the hottest part of the day very comfortable. It is pretty high here, and we have still to cross the ridge of the Sierra Madres before going down into LA—but I haven’t felt any bad effects from the altitude.
  After their arrival in Los Angeles, Elisabeth wrote again, about having been met at the station by about a dozen people—flowers until I couldn’t hold them in my arms… two big automobiles to bring us out to Hollywood…. an old shoe filled with rice fixed up on the door by their old Japanese servant, and emptied over us as I came in—and there some more wedding gifts. It was lots of fun! The weather so perfect, always cool except in the sun and last night so chilly we didn’t think of sitting out on the veranda. They have a beautiful place here—big and roomy house and everything so comfortable. Our room so large and airy with a sun parlor alcove and a large sleeping porch with the roses climbing over it, which looks down on the garden behind the house—and our own bathroom. Doesn’t that all sound luxurious and California-like?
  Elisabeth’s enchantment with California would have to wait a few years, as Shrader’s career remained firmly rooted in his illustration work. They returned to Delaware in the fall, residing in Claymont. In 1915, the couple moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, joining the artist colony that included such prominent painters as William L. Lathrop, Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber, and Charles Rosen. Elisabeth later remembered other artist neighbors, including Birge and Alexander Harrison and Robert Spencer. In April 1916, the Shraders’ first child, John Condit Shrader, was born (see Phil Kovinick’s essay).
  The years in New Hope transformed Shrader the illustrator into Shrader the painter. Although Elisabeth wrote glowingly of their years in New Hope, in 1917 the couple decided to move permanently to Los Angeles, where a new life and career waited. Elisabeth wrote glowingly to her Wellesley alumni, “If the ‘story of my life’ would be set down in two words, I should say Music for the first five years after graduation, and since my marriage Art (a dutiful wife, you see!)…We’re off to live and paint in the sunshine of Southern California.”

Return to California

  When Shrader arrived in Los Angeles in April 1917, much had changed for him in the nearly sixteen years that he had been living in the East. When he had left to pursue an art education in Chicago, he was not quite twenty-three years old, a single man with few responsibilities. When he returned, he was thirty-eight, a married man with a young son. He had established a firm reputation as an illustrator but now looked toward new opportunities. His years in New Hope had broadened his interests; after working as an illustrator lost its appeal, he began to pursue a career as a painter and, soon after his arrival, as a teacher.
  Los Angeles had changed as well. More artists had moved to the city, some coming from San Francisco after the disastrous fire and earthquake of 1906. Others had arrived from New York and Chicago. Some of those were immigrants from Europe. There were more galleries and more art associations. The California Art Club, the most influential of the artist clubs, had been founded in 1909 (its origins in the Painters’ Club of Los Angeles, founded in 1906). William Wendt, who had established his home in Los Angeles in 1906, was the current president. Shrader and Wendt would soon become close friends. Wealthy art patrons cultivated the art scene. The Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art opened to much fanfare in 1913. Within a few years, the museum had the support of William Preston Harrison, probably the most influential patron of the arts in Los Angeles. He, too, would become a good friend of Shrader. In December 1916, Harrison Gray Otis, founder and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, deeded his home on Wilshire Boulevard to Los Angeles County “to be used ‘continuously and perpetually for the Arts and advancement of the Arts.’”
  On their arrival in Los Angeles, the Shraders temporarily lived with his parents in Hollywood while they awaited completion of their own home on Highland Avenue. Shrader immediately joined the California Art Club, and the young couple soon became active members of the arts community. The Hollywood Citizen reported on “a delightful terrace dinner” hosted by the Shraders; among the artist guests were William and Julia Wendt, Maud Davis Baker, Elizabeth Waggoner, and William V. Cahill. Cahill had studied illustration with Howard Pyle at the Art Students League in New York. In 1914, he and John Hubbard Rich founded the School for Illustration and Painting in Los Angeles.
  In February 1918, Shrader exhibited paintings and illustrations at the Hollywood Woman’s Club, his first exhibition of work since his return. The Hollywood Citizen reported on the construction of the Shrader residence, describing it as “a charming and unique studio home…surrounded by a walled garden, ornamented by a fountain and a pergola. The main building will be of plaster, Mediterranean in design, with iron balconies recalling the homes of the Riviera…. The main room will be a studio, 20 x 30 feet, from which a stairway and balcony will lead to the upper room…. Mr. Shrader and his wife, who is a gifted pianist, expect to occupy their home in about 2 or 3 months, when it will no doubt be one of the centers of musical and artistic life of the city. The architects are Lead and Requa of San Diego.”
  In September, Otis Art Institute opened its doors, with Channel Pickering Townsley as managing director. Shrader received an appointment as instructor in drawing, illustration, and composition and as lecturer on anatomy. The spacious building (General Otis’s former home, called “the Bivouac”) had fourteen rooms that were converted to offices and studios. The school was founded as a department of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, and as such was operated by the county of Los Angeles. The mission of the school was “to provide students with a sound technical training in the various branches of the fine and applied arts, to teach them how to put this training to practical use in the creation of works of art, to develop their individuality and to encourage them to seek the highest degree of artistic excellence.” By June 1920, the school had 150 registered students. Julia Bracken Wendt had joined the faculty as an instructor in sculpture, and Nelbert Chouinard as an instructor in commercial design and decoration. (Chouinard went on to found her own school, the Chouinard School of Art, in 1921.) At its helm, Townsley wrote of the importance of art to the health of society, that it “satisfies an absolute need in man, having its practical as well as its purely esthetic side.”
  While developing his new career as an educator, Shrader was also painting and exhibiting his works. In the spring of 1921, Elisabeth gave birth to their second child, Edwin Roscoe Shrader, Jr., and four years later, in 1925, their third child, Elizabeth Ann, was born. In the years ahead, Elisabeth and the children would often serve as subjects for the artist.

Arts Advocate and Teacher

  The decade of the 1920s was a period of rapid advancement for Shrader. As a member of the faculty of Otis Art Institute and as a leading member of the California Art Club, he naturally assumed a leadership role in the cultural activities of Los Angeles. When he exhibited his work, reviewers often referred to his prominent position at Otis. Fred Hogue even proffered an opinion that “his position places, perhaps, some restraint on his art. He cannot afford to engage in experiments, to attempt the impossible in order to mark more clearly for himself the frontiers of the possible. Pupils have an uncanny penchant for copying defects rather than talents.”
  In 1923, Shrader was named dean of the faculty at Otis. He and Elisabeth were active with the Hollywood Art Association, often hosting receptions at their home. His paintings were shown at the University of Southern California, at the Biltmore Salon (which opened in December 1923), and with the exhibitions of the California Art Club. Shrader was elected president of the club in 1924 and held this position continuously through 1930 and for one additional year in 1934. In 1931, Arthur Millier wrote about Shrader’s stewardship of the club:
  For five or six years Roscoe was bounced in and out of the California Art Club’s presidential seat and yet he retained his sense of humor and held the various factions in harness with a strong hand. His combination of quick intelligence, disarming humor and unwavering, open-eyed loyalty has made him one of the most loved personalities in the Southern California art world.
  Shrader’s passion for the arts is evidenced by the advancement of both the institute and the club under his stewardship. When Antony Anderson challenged the club’s jury of their peers, Shrader wrote a lengthy letter to the Times defending their position. “It is self-evident that closer interest, greater activity and more enthusiasm may be developed within an organization if the entire membership is afforded expression whenever possible.”
  Shrader and other leading artists of the California Art Club also worked tirelessly to promote their work in other parts of the country. The West was often only marginally represented in major exhibitions held in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. This has been perceived by some as a problem with attitude—a view that the works of western artists were not as important as those of artists in the East. That viewpoint is substantiated by statements in a letter from 1925 that Robert B. Harshe, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote to William Wendt:
  The hardships and expenses of a California painter in getting his work before eastern juries are considerable. . . . I think the difficulty lies in the fact that few eastern institutions would want to pay transportation on a large group of paintings chosen by a western jury. When you consider that the Pennsylvania Academy local juries in Chicago and Boston often choose not more than six to eight paintings, you will get an idea of the point involved. In other words, I am doubting whether there are among artists of southern California more than six or seven men who could each year “make” the annual Exhibition at the Art Institute.
  Wendt had asked Harshe if the institute would pay for transportation costs, both to and from Chicago, but Harshe indicated that as the institute was “a very poor one,” it was unlikely that he would gain approval from the board. 
  Wendt forwarded the letter to Shrader and enclosed a hand-written note. In it, he indicated that he had made the same request to Grace Blashfield at the National Academy of Design and had received a similar reply. Wendt further stated:
  Of course good may come out of our effort to claim a place in the sun but the chances are slim. I had a letter a few days ago from an eastern artist which expresses my doubts and fears. I quote as follows:
  “The recognition western painters deserve will never be voluntarily given in the east…. The west has simply got to get together and force recognition where justice demands it. That is the reason I am anxious to have every good man join with the new Chicago Gallery Ass’n whose aim is to exploit the abilities of the men and women in the west. I have confidence in the men at the head of it and I think we older men owe it to ourselves, but especially to the younger men who are coming on to get behind the movement and do all we can to make it a success.”
  Wendt stated further that he could not identify “the man who so earnestly advocates western art and artists and who shares my pessimism more or less. This is not intended as a wet blanket note but as a warning that all is not smooth sailing in our efforts for representation.”
  Shrader’s leadership role also afforded him the opportunity of developing relationships with the leading art patrons of the day. One such person was William Preston Harrison, chief benefactor of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art. Their relationship developed because of Shrader’s position at Otis, since the school operated as a department of the museum. That they had a close working relationship is evidenced by a lengthy letter Shrader received from Harrison while the latter was in France during the summer of 1926. Written on stationery from the Grand Hotel in Rouen, the letter outlined Harrison’s activities in France and Belgium, purchasing art that he hoped would be accepted by the Los Angeles Museum. He wrote of spending “two most agreeable hours with Matisse at his country home,” visiting “over and over” with Andr Lhote, who assisted Harrison with the purchase of works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain, and Georges Rouault. He passed on a purchase of a Mary Cassatt pastel, instead purchasing one by Armand Guillaumin. Other acquisitions included “a cracker-jack pastel” by Camille Pissarro. He later spent a week with Frederick Frieseke, “who was at work on my kiddie’s portrait” and who favorably reviewed Harrison’s list of purchases. Harrison wrote that he wanted to acquire works by “Living Masters,” “men who are actually influencing world art…. If the collection I have made is not accepted by and hung in the Museum permanently—I will quickly unload and make a ‘killing.’ ” He expressed his desire to have the museum exhibit the works so that “artists and students and critics voice approval…. So I want you & John Rich, Arthur Millier, Mr. and Mrs. Vysekal, Loren Barton—any friend I have who believes in up-to-date collecting to yell for the permanent hanging of this ‘nifty’ little French collection. It will mean so much in future years to [the] Museum and right from the start will prove most interesting and instructive to students of Otis Institute & other schools.… Do not think I have deserted the patriotic American Gallery. Before leaving the States I had contracted for 10 paintings to replace what I call the 10 weak spots at Harrison Gallery.”
  Later that year, Shrader became deeply involved with another cultural icon of Los Angeles, oil heiress Aline Barnsdall. Barnsdall owned a large property, Olive Hill, on which she commissioned a large home to be designed and constructed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The home, called Hollyhock House because of its floral motif, was built between 1919 and 1921. Barnsdall had always intended for the property to be an arts and theater complex yet became disillusioned by the costs for construction and maintenance. In 1927, she donated the property to the city of Los Angeles with the intention of creating “an art center and a recreation building for children, entirely different from the ordinary playground, which will develop in the children a desire for the beautiful and noble things of life.” As a stipulation for the gift, she deemed that Hollyhock House would be loaned to the California Art Club for fifteen years. Shrader’s role in the completion of the “gift” was duly noted:
  In seeking the proper auspices for the art phase of her plan, Miss Barnsdall states that her choice was decisively influenced by the proven integrity and capabilities of the California Art Club’s president, E. Roscoe Schrader [sic], and by a recognition of the same spirit and characteristics in the personnel of the organization’s governing board and membership, together with the club’s standing as one of the oldest, the largest, the most active—the most important, substantially organized and capably functioning alliance of painters and sculptors on the Pacific Slope. And, it is a decided conviction with Miss Barnsdall that an active, progressive, creative and creating artistic force is the very best medium for broadcasting artistic influence.”
  Shrader also lobbied for artists to have an active role in civic involvement in the arts. He presented the idea of the establishment of a fine arts commission in Los Angeles “which will inquire into the matter of any art purchase for the city and gifts of art objects.” Such a commission would have artist members, something the Municipal Art Commission, the harbinger of all “civic matters pertaining to art,” sorely lacked. He was also active with the fine arts commission of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which supervised the hanging of works at the chamber’s offices. He continued to speak for the California Art Club and wrote a chastising letter to Millier, published in the Times on November 23, 1930, after Millier wrote an unfavorable review of the club’s annual exhibition the previous Sunday.
Why should the club, the instant its exhibition falls below par, be drawn, quartered and hung up in the market place? Art clubs are like individual artists. Their shows, like the works of the individual artists, are variable and cannot continually measure up to the highest standards. . . . The club throughout its entire life has put forward the best artists this section has produced…its membership lists today are the names of the young artists receiving honors abroad as well as at home.
  During World War II, Shrader received numerous letters from students who were serving in the armed forces. He kept many, and the letters show the high regard and affection the students had for their teacher and mentor. In the post-war era, Otis welcomed students who attended on the GI Bill of Rights. In fact, the student body grew so rapidly that the county began to consider ways to reduce the overcrowding—first, by cutting back on scholarships and class size, and second, by eliminating the commercial art program. Shrader felt strongly that the elimination of the commercial art program would especially affect the GIs, and he wrote a strong letter of protest. Dozens of GI students, joined by members of the California Art Club—those members undoubtedly feeling a sense of loyalty to Shrader—organized a protest march. Because of their efforts, the board of governors rescinded its order.
  Change also came to the California Art Club when the Los Angeles County Museum voted to no longer host exhibitions for the club, the Painters and Sculptors Club, the Society for Sanity in Art, or the Women Painters of the West. The museum stated that because of the growth of the permanent collection, it no longer had the space to exhibit works from local clubs and organizations. However, Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier suggested that the real reason was that the works produced by those artists were inferior, and that a great museum would not “give them great galleries at the expense of its true duty to the community, which is to show the important art of past and present to the public.” Loud protests were to no avail, and in the future, the local artists were only afforded the opportunity to exhibit in the annual Artists of Los Angeles and Vicinity exhibitions.

Accolades and Awards

  Outspoken he was, but while busy fulfilling his role as teacher, administrator, and arts advocate, Shrader did paint, exhibit, and receive recognition and awards, especially during the 1920s. He first exhibited work in Delaware as a member of the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts. Most of those works related to his illustration career. While in the East, Shrader kept in touch with Antony Anderson, art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Anderson published a letter from Shrader on December 28, 1913, in which Shrader stated that he received the Sunday edition of the Times each week. Anderson published another letter on April 2, 1916, in which Shrader announced that under the influence of Charles Rosen at the New Hope colony, he had begun to paint landscapes (left):
  In between my illustration commissions I am doing landscape! With the other well-known members of the strong group of Delaware Valley painters, Rosen and his family are our neighbors. In this secluded little community we have found the life and work very inspiring. The country is one of the most inspiring sections I have yet seen in the East. I don’t know when we may come to California again, but I do not believe it is often that we are unconscious of the “pull” of that glorious old place!
  Within a year, however, Shrader found the lure of California to be strong enough to cause him to move back to Los Angeles. Since his reputation had remained strong while he was away—thanks to the reporting of Anderson—it was not long after his return that Shrader began to exhibit paintings. The first, albeit modest, exhibition was in February 1918, when a group of landscapes and illustrations was shown at the Hollywood Woman’s Club. His first showings with the California Art Club were in its spring exhibition in April 1918, in which he exhibited two works, and in its Ninth Annual Exhibition in September and October, in which he exhibited three works. The titles of those works suggest that these were either paintings done in the East or paintings based on sketches done in the East, all of which he would have brought back with him. Several extant works depict rural, snowy landscapes that reflect the influence of Rosen and the New Hope school of impressionism, such as New Hope Barnyard and a snow scene with houses (pp. 22, 39). 
  Soon, however, Shrader would leave the snowy scenes behind him as he basked in the warmth and brightness of the California sun. In the 1920 exhibition of the California Art Club at the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego, he exhibited Mother and Son, undoubtedly a portrait of his wife, Elisabeth, with their son John. The painting was described as “a brilliantly painted canvas” of “two figures in a garden, enveloped in California sunshine.” It was the first time he had received notice for a work that focused on a figure or figures in an outdoor setting. Throughout the 1920s, Shrader exhibited often and continued to receive accolades for his work.
  Early in the decade, Shrader joined with seven other artists in forming the Group of Eight: Mabel Alvarez, Henri de Kruif, Clarence Hinkle, John Hubbard Rich, Donna Schuster, Edouard Vysekal, and Luvena Buchanan Vysekal. Anderson wrote of the group in 1927:
No member may be described as a traditional painter of Southern California landscape; all of them use color freely and generously; all are more or less open to new ideas in painting; all of them paint the figure. While most of them may be described as progressive, none works in a manner which is not comprehensible to a moderately educated mind.
  In December 1921, the Group of Eight held its first exhibition at the Friday Morning Club. Each artist exhibited about ten works. Antony Anderson reported that the artists showed “thumb sketches” and were “not yet amalgamated into a solid and inseparable group.” The paintings were likely about 10 x 13 inches, and many such small canvases are extant today. Shrader showed “a tiny landscape so beautiful, so complete, so truly ‘big’ in feeling that we wonder [at] its simplicity and its dexterity—and its miniature perfection…. A larger canvas…renders with great truth sunlight filtering through a pergola.”
  The artists showed work again in January 1922 at Bullock’s, and as reported by Anderson in the Times on January 29, were now a fully organized group, with “decidedly modern tendencies, the best of which is a penchant for lively color.” Shrader exhibited four works, and Anderson noted:
  Problems of light have engrossed Roscoe Shrader in all four of hiscanvases and to a successful rendering of light he has added color ofa vital clarity and drawing of an absolute, but unforced precision. Theresult is a fine completeness. How vivid the light in “Hill Pastures,”how pure the greens, how simple and affective the modeling. Here isthe beauty that speaks poetry, here and in “Afternoon Light” and in“Pergola,” a smaller canvas.
  In December, Shrader showed at the Los Angeles Museum’s second annual exhibition of the Art Teachers’ Association. There were eighty paintings by forty artists, and in addition, four artists—Jean Mannheim, John Coolidge, Peter Krasnow, and Shrader— were accorded a special gallery to display their work. Shrader exhibited ten paintings, both landscape and figural studies. On December 17, the Los Angeles Times reproduced his work entitled At the Door, a figure study of a small boy—likely his toddler son, Roscoe, Jr.—standing at the entry of the Shraders’ home, a view of a sunlit garden behind him. Commenting on Shrader’s work, Fred Hogue wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Splashes of pure California sunshine illuminate the whole of the south wall of the gallery where the pictures of E. Roscoe Shrader are displayed. Here is a California painter who does not have to struggle to rid his subconscious self of memories of other suns and other skies.”
  Hogue further remarked, “No one will ask where these pictures were painted: for the warmth, the glow and the mystery of the Southland is over them all. . . . Shrader is distinctly aggressively a modernist. He paints with broad strokes of the brush, or varies with splashes of color.” Another work in the exhibition was a nocturne, of which Hogue wrote: “It is a street scene in the blue nights of the California summer. We feel that [it] could not have been painted in Chicago, or even in San Francisco. It is the loveliest of nights in the dreamland to which the wanderer returns” (right).
  In spring 1925, Shrader exhibited The Speck of Dust at the Sixth Annual Exhibition of Painters and Sculptors of Southern California, which was sponsored by the Los Angeles Museum (p. 48). Anderson, writing for the Times on April 26, described it as one of the “outstanding canvases” in the exhibition, one of Shrader’s best to date. He wrote that the artist’s “technical method made for vibratory color and light without any sacrifice of form.” The work depicts a young woman, standing before a mantle, intent in her task of dusting an object. In December, the Los Angeles Museum purchased the painting for its collection.
  In October 1926, Shrader received a silver medal from the California Art Club for The Wreck. This may have been the painting described as “children playing all over a wrecked fishing barge cast up on the beach.” Also in October, Shrader exhibited with other Hollywood painters at the salon of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, showing Boy with Watering Pot, which records “the brilliancy of sunlight on the flesh of a [chubby] youngster” with an “interesting impression of the play of sunlight on a background of shrubbery. It is painted in an unusually direct fashion, revealing a mastery and knowledge of the palette and the ability of the artist to express himself.” Anderson called it a “vigorous piece of impressionism.”
  In the summer of 1927, the Group of Eight exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum, each artist having several paintings. Shrader showed seven works, including Boy with Watering Pot, The Window Seat (opposite), and Preparation for the Luncheon (p. 9). Alternatively entitled Summer Morning, the work is a portrait of Elisabeth Shrader seated outdoors, a wide-brimmed, flowered hat shielding her face from the radiant California sunlight. In her lap rests a bowl of food, probably some kind of vegetable that she is preparing. Shrader has carefully modeled the face of his wife and her hat. The rest of the painting is executed in gestural, energetic dabs of color. Some areas of the canvas are untouched, the white canvas contributing to the luminosity of the composition.
  On July 31, Arthur Millier, writing about the exhibition in the Los Angeles Times, stated, “Shrader’s gifts as a luminist are well displayed. His paintings seem painted in light which streams about his figures and fills his western landscapes.”
  In November 1927, Shrader received his highest honor, the Mrs. Keith Spalding Prize for best western landscape at the California Art Club’s 18th Annual Exhibition, awarded for his painting Pageant of a Mountain Camp. On November 27, the Times described the work as something that “delighted” the artist: “the easy, happy life among tall pines in high altitude. Strong color and an excited pitch belong to such an experience and he has brilliantly portrayed this in the rapid vertical trunks of the receding pines and the staccato repetition of the close-bunched pine needles, while at the base of the trees the people of a summer vacation dwell in golden light.” Shrader also received high praise from Elisabeth Bingham:
  Mr. Shrader’s “Pageant of a Mountain Camp” is a simple, eloquent, balanced picture. It gives a sensitive expression of the mood evoked by mountains, the mood of the happy figures invading its silences and also of the mood of the artist who, in himself, synthesizes these impressions and is also swayed by the color flashes and contrasts. It most happily retains the spontaneity of its conception, one of the difficult feats in all creative work. He has held firm to this delicate balance-point, succumbing neither to pre-occupation with technical problems nor with the effort to stress one of the particular moods I have mentioned.
  Three years later, in 1929, Shrader would receive the Spalding prize once more, this time for The Grape Pickers of La Cañada. In September, he showed works alongside those of Boris Deutsch, Edouard Vysekal, and Luvena Vysekal at the Los Angeles Museum. Shrader showed his best work, and the exhibition received a favorable review by Millier in the Los Angeles Times on September 22:
[Shrader] is in love with light as an organic factor in painting and life. Under his painted light people and landscape partake in a rhythm that gives them life and direction. “In a Garden” is a notable example of Shrader’s conception. The world of light we enter here is that which beats down incessantly upon the life of Southern California.
  Sometimes his painting is content to give us this light vibration as an end in itself. At other times he harnesses it to the presentation of life as seen in “Pageant of a Mountain Camp,” or lets it pitilessly reveal the clowning of the movie comedian in a child’s express wagon whose antics raised the skyscrapers of “Hollywood” almost overnight. Perhaps his portrayals of figures in the open air, such as “Boy with Watering Can” and “Preparation for Luncheon,” offer the most satisfactory subjects for his strong vision of Light.
  Many years later, Elisabeth Shrader wrote fondly of her husband’s painting entitled Hollywood: Roscoe was always interested in crowds and fascinated by the occasional street filmings—noise, action, lights, shouted commands. So the crowd has the foreground—for the rest he wanted to show features of the Hollywood of 1922—slender palms with tufts on top, white houses with red roofs—the first few “higher-rise” buildings—and the eternal hills against the sky—but no special streets or buildings—the essence of Hollywood, not individual features. An artist always has to leave out as much as he puts in, I am told!
  During the 1930s and 1940s, Shrader showed few paintings in Los Angeles exhibitions. Much was changing in Los Angeles, as the cultural activities of the city moved from provincialism to nationalism. Art styles changed from impressionism, which dominated the first three decades of the century, to regionalism and the American Scene in the 1930s, to modernism in the post-war era. The works of Shrader and his peers were viewed as passé, no longer worthy of attention by the public and the press.
As noted in the introduction to this essay, Elisabeth Shrader recalled that her husband only made a few paintings a year. His heart was in teaching, and that is where he focused most of his energy. His last exhibition with the California Art Club as an active member was in 1937. He did exhibit with fellow faculty members at the Los Angeles Museum in July 1936, but it is likely that he showed past, not recent, work. Once again, he received notice for his “vigorous impressionism, keyed to California light.” He also participated in an exhibition of artists defined as “impressionists” in March 1937 at the Los Angeles Art Association; the association defined impressionism as “the only style able to express the brilliance of California sunshine.”Again, he showed past works—Hollywood, Boy with Watering Can, The Wreck, and Preparations (probably Preparation for the Luncheon). Hi last major exhibition was the one held in 1949 at the Altadena Town and Country Club, after his retirement from the institute. At the time, Elisabeth said that Roscoe would now be able to “do some of the painting put aside for more leisure.”
  After Shrader’s death in 1960, Elisabeth Shrader continued to champion her husband’s work with small, local exhibitions. The La Cañada Kiwanis and Thursday Clubs jointly purchased The Grape Pickers of La Cañada and donated it to the new La Cañada High School. In addition, in 1966, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased four paintings that had been done for Shrader’s article “A Ditch in the Desert.” In reviewing his body of work, one can readily see how unfortunate it is that Shrader was not more prolific. He had a strong, individualistic style. He moved easily from detailed illustration work to classical impressionism to a loose, post-impressionist style in his paintings of the 1920s and 1930s. With a background as an illustrator, he told a story in his paintings, utilizing a colorful palette and a rigorous and expressive technique. His wife and three children were his models, and sometimes, as Elisabeth humorously remarked, “we are more than liable to come out a fat old market-lady!” Yet, more than often, the paintings that depict Elisabeth and the children are loving portraits of the artist’s family (opposite).
  That Shrader did not paint more often may also be attributed to the fact that he was clearly an extrovert and thus eschewed the solitary existence of the painter. Although he painted some pure landscapes, most of his works were scenes of everyday life, compositions often crowded with figures (opposite). Whereas his good friend William Wendt would post a “no visitors” sign in front of his studio home in Laguna Beach, Shrader would likely invite anyone in who happened to drop by. He relished his role as a teacher, enjoying the fellowship of his students and faculty. He and Elisabeth often hosted parties at their home. Elisabeth, the perfect teacher’s wife, enjoyed their busy social life, and as she herself stated, “playing around is great fun in Hollywood.” She recalled that the main streams of interest in their life together “had been art and music and always young people—our own and others—from childhood through college and into jobs, careers, homes and families of their own.”
  In 1977, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art deaccessioned numerous works by early California artists. Among those deaccessioned was Shrader’s The Speck of Dust. That painting and others were sold at auction in early November by Sotheby Parke Bernet. Ironically, this deaccession and sale spurred a resurgence of interest in and appreciation of these artists and their work. In the decades that followed, early California artists became the focus of numerous books and exhibitions. Yet, because Shrader had produced a smaller body of work than the other artists and had no dealer representation during his career, he did not attract as much attention. For instance, since 1990 more than 250 works by William Wendt have been auctioned, as opposed to only eleven by Shrader. Whereas Wendt received accolades for his paintings throughout his lifetime, Shrader only received accolades during the early part of his career. In later years, Shrader was recognized for his teaching and his leadership, and perhaps that was very gratifying to him. Now, however, he can once again receive recognition for his contributions as an artist as well.
 

—Janet Blake