Chronology
1909
William H. Calfee is born to Dr. Lee Price Calfee and Carrie Lavinia Whitehead in Washington D.C.
1926-27
Calfee studies with painter Jessie E. Baker in high school. She serves as his “initiation into painting as a creative and contemporary endeavor.”
1927-32
Calfee works as a stenographer during the day and begins to study painting and drawing at the Phillips Memorial Gallery primarily under the direction of C. Law Watkins and Olle Nordmark. These classes were conducted on the museum’s fourth floor and later an adjacent building would become known as Studio House in 1933. Meets Karl Knaths, Prentiss Taylor, Duncan and Marjorie Phillips.
1932-33
Calfee travels to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Studies with Paul Landowski. Visits the great museums of Paris and the studio of Auguste Rodin. While traveling in Italy, he develops an interest in early Renaissance fresco painting which he later explores with New Deal mural commissions and work in Haiti.
École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1932, Calfee (upper row, left) and fellow students in Paul Landowski’s sculpture class. Courtesy William H. Calfee Foundation Archive
1933-34
Upon his return to the US, Calfee briefly studies architecture at Catholic University, but soon changes course and enrolls at the Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. There he studies with figurative sculptor Carl Milles, learning both stone carving and bronze casting techniques. Graduates class of 1934.
1935
Teaches carving and painting at the Cumberland Homesteads in Tennessee for the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency. Marries Italian singer/dancer/model Maria Yolanda “Ariel” Peverini (later Hawkins), with whom he will have two children, Adriana and Richard.
1936-41
Returns to D.C. and wins several mural commissions for municipal buildings in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and California under the auspices of the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, a New Deal arts program.
1939
Exhibits at the New York World’s Fair.
Sketch for a sculpture made for World’s Fair in
New York, 1939.
1941
Artists’ Guild of Washington is founded, with Calfee as its first president.
Calfee mounts his first solo show at the James Whyte Gallery in D.C. The opening day coincides with Pearl Harbor day. Publishes “Suitability and Relationships” in the December 1941 issue of the Magazine of Art.
1942-43
Works in psychotherapy at St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C.
Participates in the “Artists for Victory” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
1946
Following the death of C. Law Watkins in 1945, Calfee assumes the role of Chairman of the Art Department at American University and founds the Watkins Memorial Collection at AU. Collaborators and fellow faculty at AU include Sarah Baker, Robert Gates, Margaret Gates, Ben Summerford, Pietro Lazzari, and Martha Bigelow Eliot.
1949
Separates from Maria P. Hawkins.
From February to April, he travels to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where he teaches local artists techniques of mural painting at Le Centre d'Art, founded by painter DeWitt Peters in 1944. Calfee’s stay is organized by the writer Selden Rodman. The skills imparted by Calfee are used by local artists to create colorful murals of Episcopal Cathedral and in preparation for the December 1950 International Exhibition in Port Au Prince.
Le Centre d'Art in Port Au Prince exhibits a solo show by Calfee.
1951
Visits UC Berkeley as Guest Associate Professor in painting.
1950-55
Meets Gertrude “June” and fathers four children: Helme, Bill, Alan, and Julia.
1954
Retires as Chairman of the Art Department at American University in order to devote himself to painting and sculpture, but continues to teach intermittently.
1957
Co-founds The Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C. along with Robert Gates, Helene McKinsey Herzbrun, Mary Orwen, Ben “Joe” Summerford, and Alice Denney. The gallery is one of the first to exhibit artists from the Washington School of Color, including Kenneth Noland.