Lelah Borah Smith

The Gallery seeks paintings by Lelah Borah Smith. Contact: info@GalleryofWisconsinArt.com

BORN: March 11, 1895 in Grant, Wisconain

DIED: May 2, 1971 in Lancaster, Wisconain

Lelah was a self-taught artist with an unusual beginning.

Lela’s sister had been hired to teach a WPA class on sewing. Things were going well for her until the she was told by her supervisor that she could not teach only sewing, but had to add something else. She discussed it with Lela, who was a milliner, and together they decided to add art as a second class, even though neither had any real understanding of painting. They spent long hours studying painting techniques, and then taught what she had learned to the students. Her first oil painting was of one of her cats,

Upon the encouragment of a fellow rural artist, she entered her first Rural Art Exhibit in Madison in 1941. Her painting of the cat received favorable comments from the judging committe and John Steuart Curry, which gave her the inspiration to paint more intentionally. Within the next few years, she was exhibiting and earning further praise and awards. She became recognized as one of the best of Wisconsin’s rural artists. 

Her ideas and subjects of her watercolor and oil paintings did not come from afar or stray from her local world. Rather, they express her personal world, her familiar life, and the objects and artifacts that surrounded her.

Lela Borah Smith, was one of the charter members and leaders of the Lancaster Art Club.  Amateur painting by a group of twelve housewives began in Grant County in 1939, the same year that the University Rural Art program was taking shape. They had not heard about the rural art program, but in 1940 the first State show was held. Two artists had the courage to enter their paintings in the second State show in 1941. They saw the pictures on the gallery walls, and took Rural Art back to Lancaster-- and Grant County and Southwest Wisconsin.

At 74, she published a booklet explaining how she paints. However, it did not speak to the physical requirements required. By 74, she was blind in one eye, afflicted with arthritis, and had a case of lead poisoning. The cause of the lead poisoning, came from the two coats of priming her paint surfaces with white lead paint - which was commonly used at the time.

Tragically, on May 2, 1971 Lela Smith, and fellow artists Grace Pendleton and Modesta Macke were killed in an auto accident 6 miles north of Lancaster. They were on their way to a meeting in Spring Green of the Wisconsin Rural Artists Association. The day before her death Lelah wrote a letter to a friend, which she didn’t have time to mail. Prophetically, part of the letter stated “I might die tomorrow and I’d really like to have someone know what makes me tick .... according to the Bible our lives are predestined, and I firmly believe that mine was. God gave me a talent and parents with understanding and encouragement.”

* Photo Credit: Rural Artists of Wisconsin, Pg. 135, John Rector Barton, Copyright 1948 by Regents of the University of Wisconsin.