Insights on those who came before us

For the first time, Florence Daniels Brown’s nearly century-old portraits of Colville Confederated Tribal members will be shown together.

Kathleen Ryan, project manager at the Pullman Depot Heritage Center, said the museum is honored to host the “striking paintings.” They’ll be on display for an undetermined amount of time, and can be viewed during the center’s regular hours from 1-4 p.m. Saturdays.

Dan Leonard, of Pullman, has always had a special connection to the artist. Maybe because Daniels Brown happened to be his aunt.

“I grew up with her paintings being the only art in the house,” he said. “I still have some hanging up.”

Leonard and his wife, Joyce, will give a presentation on the 12 portraits and insight into the artist’s life at 7 p.m. Thursday at the depot. He hinted at a surprise during the end of the program, and said he may bring some of his personal collections to display that evening only.

“I have to bring them back (to my house) or there will be an empty space on my wall,” he joked.

Born in 1908, Daniels Brown was brought up on a ranch in Central Kansas during the Dust Bowl years. Despite being in the depths of the Great Depression, Leonard said Daniels Brown’s father was determined to put his three daughters through college.

Daniels Brown went on to earn her Masters of Arts from Columbia University in New York. Leonard said she had settled down to teach art in Ottumwa, Iowa, when she first learned about developing plans to create an art colony at the Washington State College in Nespelem, Wash.

According to information provided by the Washington State University Library, artist Worth Griffin was hired in the late 1930s to paint prominent Indigenous people in the Northwest on the agreement the pieces became property of the college. During this time, he completed almost 50 portraits, which are now stored at WSU and the Northwest Museum in Spokane.

To continue creating portraits, Griffin cofounded the Nespelem Art Colony in 1937 that taught students during the summers through 1941. Leonard said during that time around 800 portraits and landscapes were produced. Many were of Native Americans of the Colville Reservation, Grand Coulee City or scenes of the Grand Coulee Dam, according to the WSU Library’s webpage.

Leonard’s family wondered for years how Daniels Brown, living in Iowa at the time, learned about the art colony. She had painted the 12 portraits on display during two visits at Nespelem.

Leonard said she painted on and off through the years before she died in 1997. Her work was given to members of the family, which he said are “prized possessions.”

Within a year, the 12 portraits will be donated to the Colville Tribal Museum in Coulee Dam. Leonard said during his first stop at the museum, one of the tribal artists recognized his grandfather in a painting.

“We stopped by and two of the paintings were placed there,” he said. “A young man was giving a talk there and he looked at one and said ‘That’s my grandfather!’ … So apparently they were well representative of the images of people.”

Leonard said he wished there were more opportunities to learn about the history of the region.

“If people are interested in the nearly 100-year-old history of this area,” he said, “this is one way to get some insight into the people that were here before us, and continue to be here.”

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com.