Queer Places:
136 Melrose Ave E, Seattle, WA 98102
319 36th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
Malcolm
McNair Roberts (April 1, 1913 - August 19, 1990) was an American artist. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute, the University of Washington and in Europe. He was credited as Seattle's first Surrealist and exhibited frequently at the Northwest Annuals at the Seattle Art Museum.
He produced paintings in oil and gouache for the WPA as well as lithographs. Roberts utilized elements of the northwest landscape in his surreal compositions, especially coast and shoreline related material such as shells, driftwood and beach detritus.
Some of his art reflects his homosexual orientation and he was connected romantically with other male artist's including
Morris Graves and
Guy Anderson. His later work of the 50's and 60's turned away from Surrealism.
“The Lavender Palette: Gay Culture and the Art of Washington State” at the
Cascadia Museum in Edmonds was a packed art show and a powerful history
lesson. Museum curator David F. Martin put together artwork by dozens of gay
men and women who often, just a few short decades ago, had to hide who they
were in order to express themselves artistically. The exhibit closed on
January 26, 2020. The featured artists included Edmonds native Guy Anderson, illustrator
Richard Bennett,
Ward Corley,
Thomas Handforth,
Mac Harshberger,
Jule Kullberg, Delbert J. McBride,
Orre Nelson Nobles,
Malcolm Roberts, potter
Lorene Spencer,
Sarah Spurgeon,
ceramicist
Virginia Weisel,
Clifford Wright, and also one-time Woodway
resident Morris Graves,
Leo Kenney,
Mark
Tobey, Lionel Pries,
Leon Derbyshire,
and
Sherrill Van Cott.
Malcolm Roberts began
art instruction in 1928 at the classes of the Seattle Fine Arts Society under
Mark
Tobey. In the late 1930s, Roberts was in a romantic but open relationship
with painter Morris Graves. In 1939 they moved into a home on Melrose Avenue
East, on Seattle's Capitol Hill, with composer
John Cage and his beard wife,
Xenia. Roberts' high-strung personality was at odds with that of the
mischievous Graves, so their living arrangement soon came to an end.
In 1940,
Roberts collaborated with Jane Givan and Robert Iglehart to produce stage and
costume designs for Bonnie Bird's newly formed American Dance Theatre at
Cornish. The dances utilized diverse music selections, including Bach's Third
English Suite, John Cage's America Was Promises (set to
Archibald MacLeish's
poem), and Any Man's Safa by George McKay. The soloist included Bonnie Bird,
then head of Cornish's dance department, as well as Syvilla Fort and Dorothy
Herrman.
When Roberts' father died, he left Malcolm with a trust fund that
would enable him to live comfortably and indulge his artistic pursuits. The
following year, he married a lesbian friend named Ann Erickson (October 21,
1913 - July, 1991) in Pasadena,
where she had moved the previous year from Seattle. Ann was part of the
cultural circle Roberts traveled in, and the two had been very close friends
for several years. Altought they gave birth to a child, the marriage soon
ended.
Malcolm Roberts developed a fine reputation in Southern California,
even designing a large home for mobster Mickey Cohen. According to Roberts'
friend Ivar Haglund, Cohen ordered Roberts to "furnish the home entirely with
antiques, but they had to be new antiques." He complied and, drawing on his
Surrealist past, created a bust of Queen Victoria with a state-of-the-art FM
radio hidden inside.
In the early 1970s he formed a design business with
Seattle decorators Barbara Thomas and Jean Anderson. He lived the remainder of
his life in a small, elegant apartment and never returned to painting again.
My published books:
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- The Lavender Palette: Gay Culture and the Art of Washington (2020),
David F. Martin,