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Biography on long-dead Texan proved mighty
expensive
By Bill Whitaker
Carolyn Barber's longtime friend Raye Virginia Allen has a
rather peculiar problem.
Here she's written this one-of-a-kind book about a Texas lady
illustrator and costume designer named, of all things, Gordon,
and how she came to champion the carefree times of the 1920s in
New York, London and Paris.
So now Raye Allen can't even find any hardback copies of her
own book to give to friends. After two months, the hardback is
sold out with no plans currently for a reprinting.
"It's really strange," Raye told me during a visit
to Abilene last week to visit Harwell and Carolyn Barber. "I'm
now buying retail - buying my own book - because I promised too
many people through the years that I would give them a clothbound
copy of the book.
"I should've bought them a few months ago, when the book
first came out," the Temple author admitted, "but at
$65 a book, who would guess they would all sell out?"
Evidence of the book's popularity was proven when Carolyn invited
a few dozen friends to a reception for the author at her home,
only for almost every copy of the book to sell. That left just
four or five copies for the author's signing at the Abilene Book
Store downtown the very next day.
Stranger still, the publisher - University of Texas Press -
either couldn't or wouldn't overnight anymore paperback copies
to Abilene.
It's the kind of situation most authors long for - and yet
wouldn't.
A LADY NAMED GORDON?
The book is titled Gordon Conway: Fashioning a New Woman, and
it's full of color and black and white illustrations of the sleek,
liberated, near-nude feminine figures that came to symbolize the
"New Woman" between the two world wars.
Gordon Conway was a tall, polished,cultured woman who did illustrations
for Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, even daily newspapers, ever
celebrating the carefree (some would say decadent) times also
summed up by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein
and Virgil Thomson.
Conway's success as a fashion artist led her to a career in
design that encompassed publicity campaigns for Broadway musicals,
costume and set designs for cabaret shows in Paris, even costume
design work at burgeoning film studios.
"It's a woman's story," Raye said. "It's a story
about a very talented, creative woman, a fashion illustrator and
costumer who in 22 years made a difference in our culture. She
suffered burnout, too, and in that sense it's a very modern story,
especially for women."
The book also turned out to be a most expensive project for
its author, a cultural historian who became interested in Gordon
Conway after meeting one of her relatives. Fourteen subsequent
years of research saw Raye do much digging across America and
Europe.
What's more, when the publisher balked at printing Gordon Conway's
most eye-catching illustrations - those in color - no less than
Stanley Marcus led others in helping bankroll that part of the
project. Raye Allen even gave up her royalties on the book to
get much of the artwork reprinted.
HOW ABOUT A SCANDAL?
"It's partially the styles and colors of the '20s,"
Raye said of the artwork's appeal. "That really was the golden
age of illustration. Photographers have done the same kind of
thing since the '30s, but I think it gets down to the quality
of artwork from the '20s.
"It's the kind of quality that comes from living during
the jazz age and living in Paris as an expatriate."
Although the Dallas-reared artist died in 1956, her style obviously
resonated among others, including longtime Abilenian Maxine Perini.
She attended last week's party and recalled how, during her Chicago
days as a budding artist in the 1930s, Conway's style had enormous
sway.
Incidentally, Raye says there was pressure to come up with
something delightfully scandalous for the book - a fling with
Ernest Hemingway, perhaps, or at least a drinking bout with F.
Scott Fitzgerald - but none of the sources could bear it out.
"I imagine what others were thinking of was all the drinking
and partying of the time and, of course, all those bare breasts
in her artwork," Raye told me. "But she didn't dress
like that, and while it might have been fun to come up with an
expose, I just couldn't say it because it wasn't the truth."
Raye may be back in Abilene soon. Already there's been talk
of bringing an exhibit devoted to Gordon Conway's art to Abilene
for a visit - bare breasts and all.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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