Julia Thecla

1896 - 1973

BiographyBorn in rural Illinois in 1896, Julia Thecla showed an aptitude for art and independent spirit from a young age. At 24 years old, she moved to Chicago to take classes at the School of the Art Institute and participate in the lively Chicago arts scene. She found shared interests with artists making magic realist and surrealist work such as Gertrude Abercrombie and Ivan Albright, both of whom she met in the 1930s. She exhibited in regional and national art fairs, including the annual paintings exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, and was supported by Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding for artists during the Great Depression.

Thecla created enigmatic, imaginative scenes using unusual approaches to watercolor and gouache. She often rubbed through layers of opaque watercolor or incised the surface to reveal layers the white paper support. Sometimes inspired by fairytales, she infused images of everyday objects and portraits with a dreamlike quality. In works from the 1950s and 1960s she pursued an even more fantastical approach, combining abstraction and figurative characters into mystical visions of outer space and the night sky. Though she made some oil paintings, her most distinctive and interesting paintings were in watercolor, gouache, and tempera. Most of her works are small in scale and have a jewel-like quality, packed with richly layered color and textural effects.

While Thecla enjoyed recognition during the 1940s and 50s in Chicago, her work fell out of favor with the broader turn toward abstract expressionism at midcentury. Though she is now relatively little-known, two smaller retrospective exhibitions of her work were organized in 1984 and 2006 and great examples of her work can be found in institutional collections, especially at the Art Institute of Chicago.

[Jen Padgett, Acquisition Rationale, March 2022.]

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