Anne Kutka McCosh (1902 - 1994)

Indian Dance, 1935, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left, 30 x 24, label verso reads: “A Kutka / Indian Dance”, title and artist’s name inscribed verso together with number “121”; literature: Yoshiki-Kovinick, Marian and Kovinick, Phil, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, University of Texas Press, Austin (1998), p. 179 (illustrated), provenance: the artist to Martin-Zambito Fine Art

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Anne Kutka McCosh painted Indian Dance during her honeymoon. In late 1934, Kutka married fellow artist David McCosh. The couple then left for the American Southwest, where they stayed for several months in New Mexico near Anne’s sister Susan Kutka Boss and her husband Homer Boss, both of whom were also artists. Homer boss is depicted in the right foreground wearing a cowboy hat.  While in Santa Fe, the couple also rented a home from artist Dorothy Kent who was Rockwell Kent’s sister. Although Indian Dance depicts a traditional native rite, Kutka turns her focus to the crowd of tourists watching from the shade of a nearby pueblo building. Like Edward Laning’s Corn Dance, a Taos Pueblo scene from 1937, Kutka emphasizes the seemingly uncomfortable contrast between dancers and spectators. Many in the Anglo audience are dressed in popular 1930s fashion better suited to the city or beach than to the desert Southwest. Kutka depicts a woman in a white backless dress, high heels and dangling hoop earrings, a girl in Jodhpurs and a sleeveless top, and a young woman in short pants standing next to an older woman in an overcoat and hat. Three of the prominent male figures wear oversized cowboy hats, brightly colored western shirts and kerchiefs which would have been more at home in a Hollywood movie than on the open plains or New Mexico mountains. Many of the spectators seem less interested in the dancers than in other pursuits from eating an ice cream cone to crocheting and even flirting with one another. Indian Dance is among the best of Kutka’s American Scene paintings which depict the quotidian details of life.

Kutka grew up in Yonkers, New York, where she initially studied art at the Yonkers School of Design. She then attended the Art Students League from 1923 through 1930, winning two Tiffany Fellowships. In the early 1930s, she became the manager of the G.R.D. Studio and received a traveling scholarship in 1933. After marrying David McCosh the same year, the couple relocated to Oregon, where he had a long career in the University of Oregon Art Department. Kutka continued as a professional artist and enjoyed significant success, including having her work exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, New York World’s Fair, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, and Seattle Art Museum, among others. In 1948, she was honored with a solo exhibition at the Portland Art Museum, where her work remains in the permanent collection. She is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.