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Our Family
Genealogy Pages
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 1901 - 2008 (106 years)
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| Name |
Lois Rachel Bartlett |
| Born |
9 Dec 1901 |
Jackson, Jackson, Michigan, USA  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Died |
8 Apr 2008 |
Clyde, Haywood, North Carolina, USA |
- Lois Bartlett Tracy
Lois Bartlett Tracy was born was born on December 9, 1901 and died on April 8, 2008 at the age of 106. Hers is an artist's legacy. Her work hangs in some of the worlds finest art museums. She left the world a more colorful, richer place. Rather than tell you her story, we thought that she could do a better job. This section of the site introduces you to the woman who was called a visionary by many... we called her "Granny".
I was born in Jackson, Michigan on December 9, 1901. By age three my favorite activity was picking up gravel and stones and watching their colors and shapes when placed in jars of water. I spent hours admiring how beautiful they looked. Even now I love rocks. They talk to me. Trees have always talked to me too. I believe my paintings came into being from my feeling one with nature.
Because Mother's health was poor, we could not spend winters in the North. When I was young, we often traveled to Florida by train with a change in Chicago. I remember when I was about six or seven, jumping off the train and running towards the Chicago Museum. There was one particular painting on the first floor to the right that was painted with very thick layers of paint. I fell in love with that thick texture. It left me with a glow of satisfaction. I decided right then and there I was going to be a painter.
For the most part, we children were taught at home but we learned History by traveling to Civil War battlefields where my father paid old men to tell local stories. We learned Geography by learning the names of rivers and cities as we explored them. We had an art teacher once when I was about six, but there was no color. The only material we had was sepia, and that did not inspire me.
College in the 1920's
I didn't have another art teacher until I was a freshman at Florida State College for Women in 1920- '21. Since the College was for women only, all subjects were simply branches of Home Economics. Painting was not taught. We were not allowed to speak to any male, not even the father of a roommate. They would line us up to go to the picture show and count us off as we came out. I often felt like I was in prison. I rebelled against these attitudes towards the education of women by cutting my long wavy golden hair to a short bob. I left and entered Michigan State College soon after women were first admitted there.
At Michigan, my painting teacher just let me go ahead on my own. I started using oil paints and would paint everything I saw. We were both startled by my work. To the amazement of us both, he soon informed me that I was painting just the way those wild men in Paris (Van Gogh, Cezanne, etc.) were painting.
Selling Art in the Early Days
By the time the Depression came along, I was married and living in Winter Park, Florida, attending Rollins College. To help with our support, I sold pictures of palm trees, five dollars a tree. If there were three trees in the painting, it was fifteen dollars. Then I painted the buildings on Rollins campus for my 1929 yearbook.
In the 30's, in Venice, Florida, certain scenes would just cry out to be painted. When a field of cabbages asked me to paint it, I realized that cabbage leaves are just as beautiful as a field of flowers. Mostly, I painted the Florida jungles. In the morning I used to ride out to a Florida ranch on a cow pony (a rather small, tough, horse used to drive the cattle - Florida used to have the second largest number of cattle of all the States). The cowboys would leave me in a hammock and continue on to their day's work. I would paint there all day until they would pick me up on their way back in the afternoon. I would usually have enough done on two 30x 36 or 36x 40 canvases that I could finish them up at home.
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ENGLEWOOD - Lois Bartlett Tracy not only lived to create art, but to bring out the best in other artists.
Tracy, whose paintings have hung in some of the nation's foremost art museums, created an artists colony in Englewood in the 1960s to inspire others and taught college-level art courses at several universities.
In honor of Tracy, who died April 8 at 106, the Arts Alliance of Lemon Bay plans to exhibit a collection of her works this Friday and Saturday.
"For at least 75 years, painting was a must for me," she told a reporter at 99. "A day without painting was a day lost."
Tracy, whose images of landscapes and the cosmos favor intangible but natural forces over realism, continued to paint into her 90s even as macular degeneration robbed her of sight.
A fire in 1941 that destroyed her home and most of her early works -- including many of her Florida jungle paintings that earned her a gold medal at the 1939 World's Fair in New York -- prompted her to seek out the essence of the subjects in her works.
"Having lost everything, I realized that objects were not important, only qualities, which cannot be destroyed," she told a Herald-Tribune reporter in 1991. "I decided from then on that I would only paint the basic substance of things rather than their outward appearance."
She liked to say that she would "go to her window every morning and take a great big breath of air and recharge her little 5-watt lightbulb with the energy of the universe," said her grandson, Bart Tracy of Englewood.
Her paintings have been displayed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Born Dec. 9, 1901, in Michigan, Lois Bartlett first came to Southwest Florida as a teenager with her father, who enjoyed fishing off Boca Grande, and her mother and four siblings.
Soon thereafter, her parents moved from the Midwest to Winter Park, just north of Orlando, and her father began investing in real estate. At one point, he owned more than 40,000 acres in the Englewood area and DeSoto and Highlands counties, her grandson said.
Tracy studied art at several colleges and received a master's degree from Rollins College. During the 1930s, she and her husband operated the Myakka Hotel in Venice and started an art colony in Laconia, N.H., where they spent the summers.
They later platted Artists Acres in Englewood on land her father owned and named the streets Artists Avenue, Van Gogh Road and for various colors on an artist's palette. In addition to her own home and art studio and gallery, the colony included nine cottages for visiting artists in a wooded setting.
"If you get eight or 10 creative people living in close proximity, it helps get everyone's creative juices flowing," said her grandson. "One man was a sculptor. Another was a talented collage artist. They had a fabulous talent pool there."
The longtime resident became a doyenne of Southwest Florida's arts community and served as president of the Florida Artists Association for several years.
During her career, Tracy taught at Rollins College, the University of Virginia, the University of Kentucky and Edison Community College in Fort Myers. She also wrote two books, "Painting Principles and Practices" in 1960 and "Adventuring in Art" in 1990.
She moved to North Carolina six years ago to live near one of her sons.
In addition to her grandson, she is survived by two sons, Donald Walker of Rives Junction, Mich., and Nathan of Waynesville, N.C.; a sister, Leah Lasbury of Englewood; nine grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
Her family will welcome relatives and friends to a reception in her honor from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Arts Alliance of Lemon Bay, 477 W. Dearborn St. The public is invited to an exhibition of her works at the Arts Alliance from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday and from noon to 2 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Memorial donations may be made to the Arts Alliance of Lemon Bay, 477 W. Dearborn St., Englewood, FL 34223; or the Englewood Art Center, 350 S. McCall Road, Englewood, FL 34223.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080430/NEWS/804300430?p=1&tc=pg
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Tracy, Lois Bartlett
Dec. 9, 1901 - April 8, 2008
Lois Bartlett Tracy, 106, Englewood, died April 8, 2008.
The services will be private.
Survivors include her sister, Leah Lasbury of Englewood; sons Donald Walker of Michigan and Nathan of North Carolina, 9 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
She inspired us all and will be missed.
Lois Tracy was a well-known artist and educator with a spirit of adventure. She published two books, earned a master's degree and traveled the world with her husband, Harry Tracy, until his death in 1985. Her paintings hang in the Smithsonian Museum, New York Museum of Modern Art and many private collections.
The Englewood Arts Alliance will have a collection of her paintings on display starting May 1, 2008, for three days. The family will be on hand to welcome her friends on opening night from 6 to 8 p.m. at 477 W. Dearborn St.
See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/heraldtribune/obituary.aspx?n=lois-bartlett-tracy&pid=108321484#sthash.Q3itF2Or.dpuf
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| Person ID |
I5288 |
Lasbury Family |
| Last Modified |
10 Jan 2024 |
| Father |
James Ellwood Bartlett, Snr.
b. 4 Jun 1871, Royal Oak, Oakland, Michigan, USA
d. 5 Feb 1952, Venice, Sarasota, Florida, USA (Age 80 years) |
| Mother |
Nellie Bethune Allen
b. 27 Apr 1875, Lodi, Kalkaska, Michigan, USA
d. 11 Oct 1977, Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida, USA (Age 102 years) |
| Married |
16 Aug 1898 |
Jackson, Jackson, Michigan, USA |
| Family ID |
F1247 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Husband 2 |
Herbert Harry Tracy
b. 4 Jan 1906, Woodbury, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA
d. 22 Jul 1985, Clyde, Haywood, North Carolina, USA (Age 79 years) |
| Married |
21 Sep 1931 |
Florida, Orange, New York, USA |
| Last Modified |
10 Jan 2024 |
| Family ID |
F7764 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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| Event Map |
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 | Born - 9 Dec 1901 - Jackson, Jackson, Michigan, USA |
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 | Married - 1926 - Winter Park, Orange, Florida, USA |
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 | Married - 21 Sep 1931 - Florida, Orange, New York, USA |
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 | Died - 8 Apr 2008 - Clyde, Haywood, North Carolina, USA |
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