Kittredge Gallery Exhibit Celebrates the Career of Frances F. Chubb ’39

TACOMA, Wash. – To mark the 75th anniversary of the construction of Kittredge Hall, home to Puget Sound’s Department of Art and Art History, Kittredge Gallery will host a yearlong series of exhibits celebrating department faculty past and present.

The inaugural exhibition in the Small Gallery is a focused retrospective of art historian and artist Frances F. Chubb ’39. The exhibition includes paintings, a sculpture, ephemera, and photographs tracing the arc of Chubb’s long and distinguished career with Puget Sound and her impact on generations of students.

Frances Chubb was a central figure in the history of the art department at Puget Sound, teaching both art and art history for more than 35 years. While she had the greatest impact as an art historian, Chubb remained a practicing artist. Foremost Chubb was a dedicated and effective teacher, communicating her passion for art and providing a well-rounded educational experience.

Chubb blended her background in painting, illustration, and design with a broad knowledge of art history, reaching both majors and nonmajors alike. The interdependence of studio art and art history emphasized in Chubb’s teaching remains part of the department’s current philosophy—that studio art students benefit from art history and art history students benefit from studio practice.

Chubb lived most of her life in Tacoma. She attended Stadium High School and the College of Puget Sound, graduating magna cum laude in 1939 with a B.F.A. and minors in sociology and English literature. During 1939–40 Chubb enrolled in teacher training courses at Puget Sound and earned a teaching certificate. From 1940 to 1942, she served on campus as a “Fellow in Art,” assisting with various courses and, in 1942, became an official instructor in art. During World War II, Chubb became the department’s only art professor.

As a young person, Chubb had contracted polio. She wore braces on both legs throughout her life, wore a body cast from her hips to her shoulders, and used crutches to walk. Despite these challenges, she followed a full schedule, climbing daily to the third floor of Jones Hall, where the art department faculty offices were located, teaching classes on the second floor, and attending to art exhibitions in the fourth-floor tower art gallery.

Chubb received her M.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington in 1952 and was given an assistant professor at Puget Sound. She was promoted to associate professor in 1958 and professor in 1968. Chubb also continued to regularly exhibit her work in local and regional art exhibitions well into the 1960s. In April 1956, she was elected to membership in the Women Painters of Washington, an organization limited to 100 professional women painters whose works had been exhibited in juried shows in the Northwest. She retired from Puget Sound in 1976.

Frances Chubb’s range of media and styles is remarkable—from tempera, oil, ink and watercolor, and mixed media to soapstone carving. Early illustrations completed for the New Deal’s National Youth Administration suggest the period style and figural work of Melvin Kohler, her undergraduate teacher at Puget Sound. Chubb’s unflagging determination to continue and expand her education may be seen in the more angular abstract work that she completed during her M.F.A. studies at the University of Washington. Her experiments with form and color mark later work. 

The exhibition was organized in a collaborative effort by Laura Edgar, curator of the Abby Williams Hill Collection; John Finney ’67, P’94, faculty emeritus and volunteer with the Puget Sound Archives and Special Collections; and Linda Williams, associate professor of art and art history; assisted by Bill Colby, professor emeritus of art, and Ron Fields, professor emeritus art history.

The curators have noted: “Our goals for the exhibition are threefold: to remember this energetic educator who defied her physical disability; to showcase her broad range of work in different media, and to commence the 75th-anniversary celebrations of the construction of Kittredge Hall. We hope that students will continue this pursuit of institutional history through archival and curatorial work in the coming years to suggest what this teacher can tell us about art and art history at midcentury in a small liberal arts setting.”

A reception for the exhibition will be held during Homecoming and Family Weekend, Friday, Oct. 30, from 4 to 6 p.m., at Kittredge Gallery, University of Puget Sound.

Kittredge Gallery serves as a teaching tool for the art and art history department and a cultural resource for both the university and the community, exhibiting work by noted regional and national artists. Exhibits and talks are free and open to the public.

Reception:
Oct. 30, 4 to 6 p.m., Kittredge Gallery

Gallery Location: the University of Puget Sound, N. 15th St. at N. Lawrence St., Tacoma, WA
Directions and Map: pugetsound.edu/directions
Regular Hours: 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Mon.–Fri.; noon–5 p.m., Saturday 
Website: pugetsound.edu/kittredge

Facebook: facebook.com/KittredgeGallery

PRESS PHOTOS are available upon request
Photo on page: Top right: Woodcut of Frances Chubb, by Bill Colby: Miss Chubb (1962); From page top: Works by Francis Chubb: White and Up (mixed media;1960s); Untitled (soapstone; 1950); Passing Figures (oil on board; 1952)