Sunset

 (The Falls, Yosemite)

Anna E. Keener  1976

 Oil on Paper Mounted on Masonite

Signed lower left, titled verso

 Framed 21" x 17"  

Image Size 16" x 12"

Offered at $4500

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Anna E. Keener -- embracing and advancing pictorial art

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Anna Elizabeth Keener was born in Flagler, Colorado in 1895, but spent most of her childhood in Dalhart, Texas.   The beginning

of a long career in academics began with first earning a BFA and BA degree from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas.  During this time she attended summer sessions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois.  At Bethany College she was also an assistant to Birger Sandzén, who was at that time a professor of block printing.  She later referred to him as one of her most important teachers.

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During World War One Keener served as a clerk for the Navy in Detroit and took evening classes at the Detroit School of Design.  When the war ended she taught public school in Arizona and Kansas, attending evening classes at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri in 1923.  That same year she authored the book, Spontaneity in Design.  In 1925 she moved to Alpine, Texas to teach art classes for the next two years at Sul Ross State Teachers College.  She then relocated briefly back to Dalhart before settling

in Sante Fe, New Mexico to teach school in Red River, Ojo Caliente, Las Vegas and Gallup.  She painted a mural in Gallup at the McKinley County Courthouse.  She died in 1982.

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Anna Keener's work is in the collections of Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas; Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas; Texas Historical Society; Museum of Fine Arts and New Mexico State Library, Santa Fe; Santa Fe Public Library; Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico; San Francisco Public Library, California; John H. Vanderpoel Art Association, Chicago, Illinois; Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas; and University of Oklahoma, Norman. 

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