JOANE (CATHERINE STRODE) CROMWELL (1895-1969)
Catherine Strode was born in the small village of Bernadotte, Illinois. Catherine graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and began her art studies at the Chicago Art Institute, graduating three years later with honors. She moved to California and took up the pseudonym, Joane Cromwell, deriving from a family name dating back to Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. She continued her studies at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles under the direction of notables such as Anna Hills, Loren Holmwood, George Demont Otis, Edgar Payne, Jack Wilkinson Smith and Hanson Puthuff. Early on, she established herself as a painter of marine, landscape and portraiture. Her paintings were noted for their faithful rendition of color and atmosphere. Known as a "Super-Salesman" and a "Horsetrader", she traded paintings for goods and services, notably, in 1937, five large oils for a new car from a Laguna Beach dealer. Several Cromwell paintings hung in the California Governor's Mansion during the tenure of Governor Merrian. During one of Joane's exhibits, F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover, so admired one of her paintings that his staff later purchased it for a gift, given when Franklin Roosevelt recognized Hoover's 25th Anniversary of Service with the F.B.I.
LA JOLLA SEASCAPE
Oil on board, 8 x 10",
Signed lower right, original label afixed verso
Circa 1940
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