Biography
Bernadine Custer was born in Normal, IL in 1900. She attended Illinois Normal University (now Illinois State University) for two years, after which she went to the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1928 Custer married a commercial artist, Arthur Ernest "Jimmy" Sharp, whom she had met at an artists' retreat in Saugatuck, MI. The couple spent 1929 studying art in Paris and London, returning to the United States to settle in New York in 1930.
Over the years, while working on her own art, she taught at the Pratt Institute and several other schools; she created commercial and editorial art for The New Yorker, Pageant, Seventeen, the New Republic and other publications; she worked as a pictorial reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune, covering musical events; and she was a prolific gallery artist, with shows in Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, New York and elsewhere.
Custer was key in setting up the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, VT, helping to put together their first exhibition and sale in 1929. Custer and Sharp both exhibited in annual shows of the Art Center. Custer completed two Post Office murals, one in Summerville, SC in 1939, and a second in Woodstock, VT in 1940. She continued to participate in federal art programs until they were disbanded in 1943.
Custer and Sharp divided their time between New York and Londonderry, VT, where they restored an 1840 farmhouse. Upon her death in 1991, the farmhouse was bequeathed to the Londonderry Arts and Historical Society. The Londonderry Historical Society now operates the Bernadine Custer Sharp House, which contains much of Custer's artwork.
Critical Analysis
Custer worked in both oils and watercolors. Her preferred medium was a combination of ink drawings highlighted in watercolor. She could draw rapidly and create lively images in ink, providing accents to the work with her watercolor. The results were quite engaging.
This approach works less well for the composition of a mural. Both of Custer's Post Office murals feel much more static than her smaller works in watercolor. Individual elements of these murals work nicely, but the overall composition lacks the vitality of compositions that aim at a narrower focus.
Murals
- Summerville, South Carolina - Former Post Office: Train Time - Summerville
- Woodstock, Vermont - Post Office: Cycle of Development of Woodstock
References
- Bernadine Custer (Wikipedia).
- Londonderry Arts and Historical Society - Art (Londonderry Arts and Historical Society).