untitled, 1940 dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

untitled, 1941 dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

October 26, 1939 - The headquarters for the Federal Art Project at 718 Toulouse Street, New Orleans, originally built in 1889 Joe seems to have spent a fair amount of time here. Only a few doors down the street was the residence of Tennessee Williams. (From  New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07171.jpg)

Today the site is a museum, open to the public. The 1939 (original) painting above is apparently exhibited here. (From French Quarter Walking Tour) (http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/fqtour/fq09hnok.html)

Joe at the age of 27 viewing a painting in a gallery, November 17, 1941
(From  New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection)
(http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07682.jpg)

Joe viewing paintings with Helen Turner, November 17, 1941 (From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph  Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07681.jpg)	November 17(?), 1941 "Joe Donaldson, Jr., and his water color drawing, 'Sky Line,' which will be on display at the central exhibit for Art Week on the twelfth floor of the Roosevelt Hotel." (From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07671.jpg)
November 24(?), 1941 "Exhibition at the Delgado Museum in City Park During National Art Week" (This may be the 1940 watercolor that is currently in the possession of Buzz Jackson - above.) (From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07614.jpg)	November 17, 1941 "For two daya an art jury selected by the Louisiana committee on Art Week, weighed the works of Louisiana artists to be placed on sale at the central exhibit in New Orleans." (From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07652.jpg)

November 17, 1941
"The announcement by National Art Week chairman Thomas B. Watson that his IBM would buy one painting
and one piece of sculpture from each state injected a competitive spirit into the observance.
Louisiana's winner was a WPA artist, Joe Donaldson, who was paide $50 for his water color, 'Gretna Gothic.'
The painting was placed in the New Orleans IBM office building window where Donaldson was 'caught' by a photographer."
(From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection)
(http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07511.jpg)

(from Works Projects Poster Collection, Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html.)
Copies of this poster, in various sizes, can be purchased at: www.rainfall.com/posters/WPA/1690.htm

November 17, 1941 "Students from the Metairie Park Country Day School are being instructed by Hans Wang, WPA artist, in the use of a screen for poster making." (From New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photograph Collection) (http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/images/07/07821.jpg) Joe's poster can be seen here - behind the students

The Library of Congress is selling T-shirts and sweatshirts with this design on the front. Contact the management (wood@med.akita-u.ac.jp) for directions to the government site.

Joe's New York Years

        Following the Pearl Harbor attack, Joe decided that he wanted to serve his country in some way.  His stutter (caused according to him by a childhood bout with diphtheria) prevented him from joining the regular armed forces, so he studied cartography at Tulane University.  As soon as he was ready he and his new bride, Edwina, headed for Washington, D.C., where Joe was put in charge of compiling maps for the Coast and Geodetic Survey.  Edwina seems to have had a position at the Pentagon.  Joe had a dream of operating a radio on a Coast Guard ship, for he had learned how to operate a radio years earlier in New Orleans, but that dream was never fulfilled.   Joe and Edwina both wanted to live in New York, so he applied for a transfer, partly for the purpose of attending a speech clinic there.  His transfer was granted, and the couple relocated to the Big Apple.   They rented an apartment in Greenwich Village and lived there for some time - perhaps until the end of the war.

And Always Will the Lovers Meet, February 11, 1945, New York sketch for painting, dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

Composition, N.Y., 1945 dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

These are the only two works executed by Joe in New York that I know of, although there were certainly more

       Late in his life, Joe told me that of all the places he had ever lived, New York was probably his favorite.  I know little about his  creative activities in the city, but he had a wonderful story about how he bravely thwarted a would-be burglar in the middle of the night - probably in 1942 (or perhaps 1943).  Having been told many times over, it was well known by his friends.  As an assignment for a linguistics course I took at Texas A&M University, I visited Joe at home with a tape recorder on Easter Sunday (April 3rd) 1994 and recorded his telling of the tale.  He was eighty, and it may have been the last time he ever recounted it.

____________________________________________________________________________________________
Joe's Famous Attempted Burglary Story:
(J = story teller - Joseph Donaldson, Jr., D = listener - Donald C. Wood)

J:    So then I went to my...I was a civilian attached to the military doing these maps...
D:   Right.  Yeah.
J:    But I had an "essential job" - that's in quotes.  By that time there were so many "essential" people we were falling all over (each other)!
         And they thought I was an idiot for leaving this job to go...that's...when they were...German subs were blowing the ships out of the water. 
         So, I...uh...decided I'd do that.  But before all of this....and I'm getting my stories...oh, boy.
D:   Go ahead.  Go ahead.
J:     Uh...we were new - Edwina and I - in New York, you see.  We loved it, but we were new, and we lived in the Village, and we lived on the
        third floor of a...place on Perry Street, I think it was.  And it was a small apartment - a sort of a "shotgun" apartment.  You could look straight back. 
        And it was called a "studio apartment" - simply because it had a roll-away bed that you pull out!  (laughter)
D:    (laughter)
J:     When you wanted to sleep you pulled out the bed!
D:    Uh, huh.
J:     Well, it also had a humongous lamp - an iron lamp - with about a two hundred and fifty watt bulb in it.
D:    Uh, huh.
J:     And, it was...I had never seen anything like this lamp.  So, when we pulled out the bed, we had the lamp by the bed, to read. 
        Well, I was on the outside, and Edwina was on the inside, and the wall to the bathroom blocked her view of the...of the rear window. 
        But I could see the rear window.  And there was an industrial building which had the lights on all night - its lights on all night - every night,
        so illumination was there, I mean, to a degree, I could see.  I had twenty-twenty vision then anyway.  So, all of a sudden I saw this guy
        trying to get in the window!
D:    Ah, hah!
J:     He had come up the fire escape, to the third floor.  This is true.  And I never had a gun, and I knew I had to do something, and I had to do it in a hurry. 
        So I woke Edwina up, and I gently put my hand over her...uh...I did this and smiled.  And I was scared to death, but I didn't let her...you know...I didn't
        want to frighten her - not that I was ashamed of being scared  - anyone who isn't frightened in certain situation is a damned fool!  But I didn't want to
        frighten her.  so, then I, I was only sleeping in a pair of shorts, and I slipped off the shorts. (laughter)   And I looked...to see how far the string to this
        humongous lamp was - it wasn't far.  Then, I ran my hands through my hair, and I had...fairly good length hair, so it stood right up on end.  And I
        waited until this joker got in the window, with his (laughter) his hands holding the window up - both of his feet inside.
D:    Uh, huh.
J:     He couldn't reach for a gun, you see?
D:    Uh, huh.
J:      And I leaped out of...jumped out of bed, pulled on the lamp at the same time, I (was) stark naked, and jumped and yelled at the top of my voice,
        and he fell out the window!  (laughter) 
D:     (laughter)
J:      He did! (laughter)   And Edwina didn't know what...and she had a sheet over her head, and she was jumping and kicking (laughter). 
        She thought I'd gone nuts, I guess!  (laughter) 
D:     (laughter)
J:      Anyway, then...by that time it was almost daybreak - he (had) chosen an odd hour for this attempt at entering, illegal entry.  So I said,
        "My God, I've killed a man."  So I went into the bathroom and combed my hair, and put on my pajamas and my bathrobe.  I said, "Hun, will
        you put some coffee on?"  And she says, "You're going to ask him up for coffee?"  (laughter)  And I said, "No, no, no.  I meant some for us - for me. 
        I'll do it if you..." and she says, "No, I'll do it."  (laughter)  So, I went downstairs...service entrance...and sitting there was this little, middle-aged man -
        pretty bummed up.  And I opened the door and I said, "How badly are you hurt?"  And he did a double take and looked at me, and I'm...tall...tall. 
        I was six four then, and I was about twenty-eight years old.  And I said, "I'm the man who's apartment you tried to get into." 
        He looked at me (laughter) and said, "Mister, for God's sake, either call the cops or go away!"  (laughter)  So, I didn't call the cops.
         I gently shut the door, and went away, and had a cup of coffee with Edwina.  And that's the...end of that story.   Turn that thing off.
D:    (laughter)
 J:     Kaput!
D:     That's the end?
J:      ...end of that, yes.  Also the end of my voice!
D:    Yeah, your voice is sounding...
J:     Turn your...thingamajig...off.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remembered City, 1950 - 1960 dimensions unknown, watercolor (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

Revisitation by Joseph Donaldson, Jr., printed in  Quartet Magazine, 1971, pp. 26 -27 City Returned to After many years Known and unknown - Sharp knife of Strangeness In the Gut And then The bandage-like remembrances And Love City of stench and balm Of Hurt and Humor City of Shrieks and din Of Calmness And Of Truth and Lies This Sea touched Rock based Steel boned Ball hung city-world Rejects My Metaphoric mouthings Simulative words - Accepts confusion Nowness Presence here Action accepts - And Awe

   

N.Y., 1966
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(photographed by Dr. Tim Manning, Texas A&M University, image courtesy of James Baker)
Certainly Joe was reflecting on the Big Apple when he painted this one as well.

New Orleans, St. Thomas, and Texas

       Joe and Edwina returned to New Orleans, and in 1945 he took a teaching position at Tulane University, where also seems to have taught briefly before moving to New York.  At Tulane he worked with John Clemmer (see http://www.johnclemmer.com).  During this period, back in his home town, Joe exhibited his work with the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club.  At some point - either then or in his earlier time at Tulane in the 1930s - he seems to have been involved with the John McGrady School of Art and the New Orleans Academy of Art, but I do not know anything specific about his associations with either institution.  (McGrady had also been a WPA artist in the early 1940s).

title unknown, February 1948
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

This painting, probably done in New Orleans, reminds me of the work of Taro Okamoto,
the famous Japanese avant-garde artist, of the same period.

Mid-stream (?), 1949
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Image courtesy of Todd Maxwell, who was kind enough to photograph this and the
painting below and contribute them.  The originals were given by Joe to his father, Gene Maxwell, who was
a student in the architecture department of Tulane University in 1949 and 1950.)

Mountain Side, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1950
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Image courtesy of Todd Maxwell)

Birds in the Bush, January 1958
29.5 inches by 19.75 inches, watercolor and ink
(Image courtesy of William Boggess of Oxnard, CA, who rescued the original from someone's garage)

       Joe and Edwina eventually divorced after their return to New Orleans.  A story recounted by John Clemmer suggests that Joe tried to keep the news of the impending separation from his friends and colleagues as long as he could, and also that he must have been rather anxious about it.


         "I recall an incident with Joe in the late 40's. A group of friends and fellow artists were drinking in the Bourbon House.  I decided to leave  and was asked on what grounds did I have to leave.  Apropos of nothing I said on grounds of divorce although I was not married at the time.  I  was going up the stairs at David Arnold's house on Dauphine St. where I was camped out in the attic when the door bell rang.  There was Joe  obviously extremely agitated.  He vehemently wanted to know what I knew about his impending divorce and whether I had mentioned it to  anyone.  I had considerable difficulty convincing Joe that I knew nothing about his divorce until he mentioned it and that my parting remark was in  response to a question!" 
                                                                                                                                       - John Clemmer

        Probably around 1950 Joe married Grace Underwood, who had a daughter (Gayle) and a son (Tony) from her first marriage.  During his off-time, Joe worked in Grace's attic in order to avoid interruptions.  Apparently, Joe's relationship with the dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture was not especially cordial (described by one as "stormy") and this may have been why he resigned in 1951, holding the title of associate professor.  Joe and Grace then left the mainland and headed for the U.S. Virgin Islands, where they stayed for five years.  There, he taught landscape drawing and painting at the Saint Thomas Art Center.  In 1956 Joe was lured away by a friend who was teaching at the school of architecture, Texas A&M University, and he brought Grace with him to College Station to take up a teaching position at TAMU.   He later told me that he had made the move because the weather in the Virgin Islands had been "too damn nice all the time."  They lived in a small house near the present-day site of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, across a large avenue from the university campus.

Ink Wash Landscape, circa 1963
14 inches by 18 inches
(Image courtesy of Sheldon Minkon)

Pancil Landscape, circa 1963
11 inches by 14 inches
(Image courtesy of Sheldon Minkon)

Sepia Landscape, circa 1963
10 inches by 13 inches
(Image courtesy of Sheldon Minkon)

Shrimp Boats, circa 1963
  watercolor
(Image courtesy of Sheldon Minkon)

"For Shelly", circa 1963
  watercolor and ink
(Image courtesy of Sheldon Minkon)

        Being somewhat "different" from most other teaching faculty of the university, and from the general residents of the area as well, Joe stood out in College Station; he had just moved from offshore, and was not especially religious (if at all), and was therefore seen as the quintessential Bohemian - a real beatnik.  Joe and Grace were known to be fairly heavy drinkers, and night owls as well.  In fact, the first half of the 1960s seem to have been an especially rough time for Joe.  Sheldon Minkon knew both Joe and Grace at the time, and his recollection helps shed some light on that part of Joe's life:



"I met Joe and Grace in my sophomore year, while a student at Texas A&M school of Architecture.  I was very involved and actually living in the Hillel Foundation on Jersey Street (now George Bush Blvd.). The building happened to be close to the Donaldson residence, and I saw Joe frequently.  I have to say that by this point in time, Grace was drinking very heavily, and was passed out on most occasions that I was with Joe. By evening time, Joe was not far behind her. They drank brandy, I do not remember the brand, which I would buy, almost daily.  I had to drive into Bryan, as College Station was “dry”.    [The following] took place, over and over with little deviation.  Joe would call me, or walk over to the Hillel Building, drunk and hungry, and ask me to take him to get some dinner.  I would take him to some chili joint in “town”, Joe would eat and sometimes, literally pass out, face down, in his plate.  Then I would take him home, clean him up and put him to bed.  On the occasions that he was lucid, he would insist that I take his art work.  We would load my car with drawings and paintings, and the next day Joe would come by and ask for them back.  This went on over and over again. I never took the art work out of my car, knowing that he would be back for them.  It was like a traveling art exhibit, only in my car.  At the end of my junior year I left Texas A&M to pursue a fine art course at Pratt Institute in NY.  Joe encouraged me to do this as A&M did not offer an art degree, and I was clearly leaning in that direction.  While drunk or sober, Joe was a great teacher, and philosopher.  He had a way of getting to the “essence” and was able to translate it to art.  I learned much from him, and admired his enormous ability, and intellect.  To this day I refer to a book, “the natural way to draw”, that he gave me to help sharpen eye hand coordination.  In retrospect, I think that Grace was an alcoholic, and Joe drank to keep her company. I could be wrong, it was so long ago, but based on conversations with friends that new them, I was told that he stopped drinking after she passed away".

                                                                                                                                                                       - Sheldon Minkon (Sept., 2008)



  At one point, Joe later said, Grace was warned by a doctor to lay off the alcohol.  He made up his mind to do exactly that, but apparently Grace was not able to - she developed cirrhosis of the liver.   The specific reasons are unknown to me, but the couple eventually divorced (whether this happened before or after Grace's diagnosis I also do not know).  It seems that Joe spent some time with his parents and his sister's family in New Orleans during this period, and this very well may have been while he and Grace were separated.  Back in College Station, Joe remarried Grace, and he took care of her as her condition worsened.   He was becoming well-established as a Texas (and generally Southern) artist, and as an educator in the University, by the time Grace passed away on April 2, 1965.  Although Joe has apparently not been buried in his family grave, he did have Grace interred there.  The tombstone still overlooks the burial plot in Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans.

IN MEMORY OF ELLEN DONALDSON BORN SEPT. 8, 1848 DIED JUNE 20, 1907 JOSEPH DONALDSON BORN JAN. 18, 1831 DIED JULY 30, 1911 WILLIAM DONALDSON NOV. 19, 1880 MARCH 25, 1964 JOSEPH DONALDSON JULY 10, 1875 MAY 29, 1964 GRACE GRAHAM DONALDSON WIFE OF JOSEPH DONALDSON, JR. AUG. 22, 1912 APR. 2, 1965 ELIZABETH SAWYER DONALDSON WIFE OF JOSEPH DONALDSON JUNE 1, 1883 JUNE 9, 1966

The Donaldson family grave in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans (photo and transcription courtesy of Fred Hatfield - www.fredhatfield.com, lafayettecemetery1.com, under "Donaldson")  Ellen (Philipps) and Joseph were Joseph, Jr.'s grandparents.  William, his uncle, married Flourisca Webber in New Orleans on March 17, 1906. The second Joseph was Joe's father.  He married Elizabeth Thomas Sawyer, who would later give birth to Joseph, Jr., in New Orleans on  April 22, 1908. Joe Jr.'s sister, Elizabeth Ellen Donaldson, was named after the siblings' mother and grandmother.  She married Richard Leonce Buck, a surgeon, in the 1930s and died in 1980. Her son, Joseph Donaldson Buck, Sr., still lives in Louisiana and contributed material for the museum.

 

        Joe once told me that he wanted to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered over the Mississippi River, but he seems to have made no arrangements in his will.  Apparently he was cremated, but what happened to his ashes I do not know.  I would like to see them either placed in the family grave one day or scattered over the great river as he wanted.

1965 Portrait of Joe Donaldson by Dan Malcolm,
TAMU class of 1963
(courtesy of Dan Malcolm)

 "I am so pleased to [share] send this photo of Joe.  I took this sometime in the fall of 1965 for a specific reason.  As part of my course work, I took a photography course (all 5 of us in the graduate center did) and we were to have a photo contest on campus with five or six other schools to attend.  I asked Joe if I could take a portrait photo of him and he agreed.  We agreed on a time, and I believe I took this in his office.  I had a double lens Yashika camera, a tripod and a small aluminum hooded hand held flood light with about a 40 watt bulb in it.  That's all I could afford.  If you knew Joe, you know he could never be still.  I knew it was going to be a challenge to get him to sit still for a portrait.  I knew I was going to have to work fast, and I did.  The entire session probably took less than five minutes and I don't think I got more than 3 or 4 shots.  The image in the background is an ink drawing that Joe did of Alan Stacell.  I got lucky.  What a shot.  I took first place in portrait in the photo contest!  I felt then and feel now that this photo really captured the true character of Joe Donaldson."

                                                                                                                                                             - Dan Malcolm (2007)

Gulf Shrimp Boats, 1968
19 inches by  27.5 inches, watercolor
(Image courtesy of James Baker, original in a private collection)




















Abstract, 1967
18.5 inches by  28.5 inches, watercolor
(Image courtesy of James Baker, original in a private collection)

        Joe was very active in College Station, teaching many people at his house, contributing to various publications, and holding exhibits of his work.  Joe loved drawing with conte crayons.  In fact, he was affectionately called "Conte Joe" by many of his students.  Many years after his retirement (in his upper seventies) he attended a reunion of sorts at Texas A&M University and was thrilled to meet a number of former students who once again called him by that nickname.  Although Joe was often alone following Grace's passing in 1965, this was not always so - he was married to a hairdresser for a short time, and then he married a much younger woman, a student in a different department at the university, only to have the union anulled due to the extreme difference in age.  This last wife of Joe's remained in touch with him for the rest of his life; I can recall his happiness over receiving phone calls from her even when he was eighty.




"The last time I saw Joe was in 1993 when I went to school for our 30th reunion.   I had not seen him since 1966 or '67.  That is the time he talked about when he saw so many of his students who had called him "Conte Joe".  I think my class gave him that name.  Joe was standing on the sidewalk near the architecture building. I walked up to him and said 'Joe, how are you?'  He said 'Dan Malcolm!'.  After 25 or 26 years, he still knew me.  Then and there, I knew I was more than just one of his former students, I was his friend."

                                                                                                                                                                                   - Dan Malcolm, '63




        Joe also had pets: an Afghan hound named "Tasha" that lived to the age of seventeen, and later a fluffy cat whom he affectionately named "Mr. Wussy."  Sadly, however, Mr. Wussy vanished one day, never to return.  I was still in my mid-teens at the time, and so was not particularly interested in the old man yet, but I remember that the feline's disappearance upset Joe very much.  My mother made some signs that read "Help Find Mr. Wussy," and posted them around the neighborhood.  She also searched far and wide for that cat, and for my part I recall at least keeping my eyes open.  Joe never got another pet after that.  In the end, although Joe married a total of five times in his life (twice to the same person) he never became a father.  I guess his drawings, paintings, and poems were his children.

Abstract Composition, date unknown 4 in. by 5 in., mixed media (Image courtesy of James Baker, original in the collection of Graham Horsley)

Reclining Nude, 1963 dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Image courtesy of James Baker)

   
I grew up in College Station and knew 'Conte Joe' as a neighbor as well as a professor.  I grew up on Lee Street about 2 blocks from his house on what then was Jersey Street. It is now George Bush Avenue.   Joe lived in a small green house next to the Episcopal Church and was (...) a bit unorthodox in his ways.  I came to know this thru Alan Stacell, a coworker in the Architecture Department and also a member of the church as well.  I ended up in the LA program at TAMU as my dad wanted me to work in a field that was more stable than pursuing art, which was my first love.

In public school I had studied under a local painter, Ruth Mogford and as luck would have it, some other local artists.  But I recall that in high school I really wanted to take from Joe and learned that on some occasions he give private lessons.  He and I talked and he agreed to consider it if I would help him clean up his studio in the house.   I remember spending hours in his small studio going thru stacks and stacks of sketches and paintings trying to decide what he might want to part with (discard) and what he would keep.  He was too busy to sit by my side and go thru them so it became my task to try and organize them.  It was a hopeless effort.  Everything I saw looked wonderful and the ones I thought he might part with he wanted to keep.

 I do remember a mountain of the napkin sketches and numerous bird sketches he described as portraits of persons that appeared "pompous and overbearing", alluding to how rich in art opportunities, drinking coffee and people watching were.  He would do these with a wooden match stick and a bottle of india ink. What amazed me about his work is that it was quick and decisive with never an errant stroke.   This is the time when he was publishing some things in Ford Times and I was very impressed. Anyway my employment was brief as he realized he would have to do the work himself.  So my hopes of private lessons never evolved.

I truly began to understand his talent and teaching ability, spending time in his sophomore level graphics class.  One nice thing about him was he did not mind if students from other sections and classes wandered thru his labs.  We focused primarily on the use of conte’ crayons and some ink washes.  I remember a series of quick figure studies whereby we had to work very quickly and sometimes without lifting the crayon from the paper.  It took some of the anxiety out of the process of creating.

I also had the opportunity to study under Alan Stacell, Roy Pledger, John Fairey and others in the department.   It was the only art in the community and it was a great opportunity for me.   I also got to spend some time with E. M. "Buck" Schewitz a successful artist in his own right.  He did workshops at A&M on occasion.

                                                                                                                                               - Bruce Riggs, a former student of Joe's at TAMU








"Joe would draw on anything available, anywhere we were, napkins, placemats, paper scraps he found. He usually dismissed them as junk and tossed them. I wasn't smart enough to keep them. With me, he was always demonstrating, and teaching me something through those sketches."

                                                                                                                                                    - Sheldon Minkon (Sept. 2008)

Worried Bird, January 1971
30 in. by 40 in., conte crayon, charcoal, and ink
(Photo by Megan Taylor, image courtesy of Ken Zindler, via James Baker)

Joe teaching students in his studio, 1973
My mother, Katherine Wood, sits in the foreground of the photo on the bottom left.  Nelson,
one-time lodger of Joe's and the model for a portrait (and possibly two) in the portrait gallery, is visible in three of the photos.
(Images courtesy of Katherine Wood)

Joe's house on  North Ridgefield Circle, College Station
The room in front was Joe's studio.
(photographed in 2005 by Katherine Wood)

       As can be seen from the above photo, from the outside Joe's house looked just like any other, but on the inside it was totally different.  It was like a small art gallery - the walls were covered both with his own works and with those that his students had given him over the years.  It was wonderful to just sit and chat with him, surrounded by all the paintings, drawings, and sculptures.  In the center of the living/dining room was a huge, thick wooden table with all kinds of interesting objects - driftwood, stones, glass beads and marbles - on it, and on the north side of the house was his studio, complete with a stage for models to perch themselves upon, easels, tables, and a fantastic collection of tools for his trade.    

Joseph Donaldson - artist, professor, and writer - has sought through many avenues of expression and communication to share his love and understanding for the arts with generations of students, as well as colleagues, friends and his several "publics", from Houston to New York and Cardiff to St. Thomas.

He brings  to his art, teaching and writing the knowledge and expertise of one widely traveled and diversely schooled - from his early student years in his native New Orleans, at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, through a stimulating period as a painter in St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, to his more recent and varied experiences in western Europe while on faculty development leave from Texas A&M University.

Relating his experience as a practicing artist to teaching art has been a major preoccupation, and yet he also exhibited his work widely in many major national shows in New York, Chicago, and New Orleans, as well as regional and state exhibitions in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.  Additionally, his work is represented in numerous prestigious public collections such as Ford Motor Company, International Business Machines, Inc., the Hazel Guggenheim McKinley Collection and Government House, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, as well as many private collections – Burl Ives, New Orleans, Amy Freeman Lee, San Antonio, and Charles Colbert, New Orleans.  Further, his commissions include the Sazerac mural, Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans, illustrations for “Ford Times” and “The Continental Magazine”, illustrations and poems for “Quartet”, a magazine of the arts, design and illustrations for Frances Parkinson Keyes’ “Dinner at Antoines”, short story illustrations for “Southern Magazine”, book jacket design for Bantam Books, New York and color consultant for L. Lanzer “Multi Map, Inc.” (world maps for high school and college textbooks), New York.

While he is thoroughly conversant with what is happening in the world of visual arts today, he feels no compulsion to be a part of the so-called “leading edge” of any movement or “ism”.  It is indeed reassuring to find a man with such absolute integrity who knows himself as well as Joseph Donaldson does.  He makes his art as naturally as he breathes, nurturing his own skills of mind and hand, while enriching and stimulating all with whom he comes in contact.

He is an individual whose credentials as a human being, artist and teacher more than qualify him for the recognition and honor which this select retrospective exhibition accords him.

From a leaflet for a retrospective exhibition of Joe's work at Texas A&M,
written by the late W. Graham Horsley, Professor of Environmental Design and long-time friend of Joe's
(The "Sazerac mural" mentioned here is not, in fact, displayed in the Sazerac Bar in New Orleans.  All of their
paintings were done by Paul Ninas in the 1940s.  John Clemmer, however, did have a study for a mural that must have been
intended for the Sazerac Bar but was never executed.  It now belongs to the Historic New Orleans Collection.)

Faces of the Big Thicket

Village Creek Farm on Honey Island, Big Thicket

Various illustrations for "Jungle Country - Texas Style" by Archer Fullington,
Ford Times Magazine, November 1964, pgs. 41, 43
(Images courtesy of James Baker)

A page from the magazine, Quartet (1971), with one of Joe's numerous poems, a photo, and some biographical information
(Image courtesy of Katherine Wood)

Two more pages from Quartet Magazine
(Images courtesy of Katherine Wood)

The cover of Center Magazine, January 1979 Joe loved to draw faces

Thin Man, 1971

(Images courtesy of Katherine Wood)



















Thin Man, Jan. 22, 1978
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)
















Three Faces with Venus (The Hollow Men?), January 30, 1979
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)



















Faces, November 10, 1972
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)
















For Dawn (sketch), date unknown
This is one of Joe's many napkin sketches.
He drew it for Grace's great-granddaughter, Dawn, to whom he signed and presented it.
(Image courtesy of Summer Stone Callaway)
















Prisoner, September 21, 1973
dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink
(Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

Fantasia - Thin Man with Branches, December 1973 dimensions unknown, watercolor and ink (Photo by Tim Manning, image courtesy of James Baker)

Copy from Michelangelo, 1984 18 inces by 12 inches, graphite on paper (Image courtesy of James Baker, original in the collection of Graham Horsley)

The Room

He walked into the Silence of the Sighted dark

Into the hearing Silence of the darker room

His fingers found the latch and closed the door

The unknown door within the unseen place

Some place, somewhere, he felt he'd never been

Some unfamiliar place he'd never left.

His hands moved cautiously along the wall

His footsteps followed, naked on the floor,

They found the meeting of a corner's walls

He crouched and closed his arms around his knees.

The hours, or minutes, fell like dust on stone,

Like finely sifted sand of all Eternity.

Slowly his hand moved out and, opened, cupped

To catch, perhaps, a little silt of Time

It closed and held, instead, the Pulse of Now –

The pulse of Now that was the Now of Then

He held it close

And suddenly he knew –

Its beat had cleared a passage in his thought.

All was not muted, blinded stillness there

The Eyes that watched him in the Dark were his

He heard the Silence and the Silence spoke:

"You are no stranger here, You have returned

Stand up and walk along the wall –

The second wall your fingers found before

Then follow to the next

And stand and hear

The Sound beyond the shutters – stand and hear

Stand feet apart and feel the movement too."

He rose, and following the walls,

He stopped and heard –

It was the sound of  Sea –

Her sound, Her movement seeming very near.

The sound grew strong – he could not understand

Not having heard, or felt, or understood before.

One hand still holding, close, the Pulse –

The other reached and found another latch

He pushed the shutters open and the Sea was there

The solemn Vastness bright in the moonlight then –

Bright, Timeless Vastness in his Memory –

With all the ancient Freshness felt again.

The Movement heightened, entering the room.

His hand fell open and released the Pulse

He freed the Pulse of Now, the Pulse of Then

And knew, at last, a final, stronger, unrelenting One.

He took the water's life – as it took his.

Joseph Donaldson
June 1974-July 1976

(courtesy of Dara Childs, Jr.)

The Hunter (A Narrative in Rhyme)

He was, for some unmeasured sleep of time,

A stranger in an unknown, friendless place,

A prayer unprayed, a saying never said.

He suffered guilt for uncommitted crime

His mirror showed a presence not a Face.

He was a runner in an unmarked race

A song unsung, a poem never read.

His travels took him far, but never There

A troubled searcher, he, who searched in vain

He was the missing fragment of a broken thought

His mission was to reattach, repair
And so to see his mirrored face again,

To know detachment, namelessness and pain

If doing so would find the Self he sought.

And Time, asleep, must of itself awake

But for this hunter with

                         an unfound prey,

Time waking quietly was no sudden thing.

At last he was a knowing prayer to make,

A poem and a song, to read, to sing, to say –

A runner eager to explore the way

A certain Face who knew its mirroring.

One day he walked in calmness

                                 on the shore.

He walked with strength

                                  of reclaimed Self, alone,

Then rested near the rocks

                                   and touched the Sea.

He knew the sights and sounds

                                     he'd known before –

The cry of the gull, the dance of surf spray blown,

He knew the Sky and Water's vastness as his own

And asked a question – old as Time may be,

"Have I found Self or Selves in finding me?"

 Joseph Donaldson
October, 1976

(courtesy of Dara Childs, Jr.)

One day (in 1987) Joe was trying to teach me how to draw the human face.  He grabbed a book from a shelf, and referring to some examples in it, he made these quick skull sketches on a sheet of paper. He then glued the paper to a piece of cardboard and gave it to me.

For my eighteenth birthday Joe gave me this book. He had very fine script.

"For Dara" - the front cover of a greeting card Joe sent to Dara Childs (courtesy of Dara Childs, Jr.)

"Little Man" - a sketch Joe gave to Dara Childs (courtesy of Dara Childs, Jr.)