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Regional  Oral  History  Office  University  of  California 

The  Bancroft  Library  Berkeley,  California 


Helen  Oldfield 
(1902-1981) 

OTIS  OLDFIELD  AND  THE  SAN  FRANCISCO  ART  COMMUNITY, 
1920S  TO  1960S 


An  Interview  Conducted  by 

Micaela  DuCasse  and  Ruth  Cravath 

1981 


Copy  No.    / 
Copyright  (c)  1982  by  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  California 


Otis  Oldfield,  1913 

Photo  by  Pierre  Petit,  Paris 


Helen  and  Otis,  ca.  1960 


Helen  and  Otis  with  their  daughters, 
Rhoda  and  Jayne,  San  Francisco 


The  Oldfields  with  granddaughter 
Rachel  Haug,  Alta  Cabin,  1957 


All  uses  of  this  manuscript  are  covered  by  a 
legal  agreement  between  the  Regents  of  the  University 
of  California  and  Helen  Oldfield  dated  January  14,  1981. 
The  manuscript  is  thereby  made  available  for  research 
purposes.   All  literary  rights  in  the  manuscript, 
including  the  right  to  publish,  are  reserved  to  The 
Bancroft  Library  of  the  University  of  California  Berkeley. 
No  part  of  the  manuscript  may  be  quoted  for  publication 
without  the  written  permission  of  the  Director  of  The 
Bancroft  Library  of  the  University  of  California  at 
Berkeley. 

Requests  for  permission  to  quote  for  publication 
should  be  addressed  to  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office, 
Room  486  Library,  and  should  include  identification  of 
the  specific  passages  to  be  quoted,  anticipated  use  of 
the  passages,  and  identification  of  the  user. 

It  is  recommended  that  this  oral  history  be  cited 
as  follows : 

Helen  Oldfield,  "Otis  Oldfield  and  the  San  Francisco 
Art  Community,  1920s  to  1960s,"  an  oral  history 
conducted  1981  by  Micaela  DuCasse  and  Ruth  Cravath, 
Regional  Oral  History  Office,  The  Bancroft  Library, 
University  of  California,  Berkeley,  1982. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  —  Helen  Oldfield 

PREFACE,  by  Suzanne  B.  Riess  i 

INTERVIEW  HISTORY,  by  Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse  and  Ruth  Cravath    ii 

INTERVIEW  ONE,  JANUARY  14,  1981 

Tape  1,  Side  A:   Family,  birth  and  early  years;  education 
as  a  child  in  Santa  Rosa;  high  school  years,  and  study  at 
Arts  &  Crafts  in  Berkeley;  first  job  as  a  commercial  artist; 
continuing  art  school  studies  part  time;  Arts  &  Crafts,  the 
Frederick  Meyers .  1 

Tape  1,  Side  B:  Arts  &  Crafts,  the  Meyers;  her  own  work; 
Marty;  Otis  Oldfield,  first  meeting;  Mark  Hopkins  Art  In 
stitute;  Otis'  s  private  class;  night  classes  at  Institute; 
courtship  and  wedding .  16 

Tape  2,  Side  A:  Wedding  description;  friendship  with  Yun 

Gee;  early  married  life;  two  daughters.  30 

INTERVIEW  TWO,  JANUARY  21,  1981 

Tape  2,  Side  B:  The  wedding;  attendant,  Lucille  Duff;  Ralph 
Stackpole  stands  up  for  Otis;  Otis's  parents  and  family 
background  and  birth,  etc.;  Otis's  childhood,  family  tra 
vels,  schooling,  and  eventual  arrival  in  San  Francisco  and 
return  to  Sacramento;  Otis  works  at  various  jobs  to  raise 
money  to  go  to  Paris ;  trip  to  Paris ;  commonlaw  marriage  to 
Jeanne  Roche,  from  1909-1924,  is  period  of  his  Paris  stay; 
his  return  to  San  Francisco.  45 

Tape  3,  Side  A:  First  Parillia  Ball  at  San  Francisco  Art 
Institute;  Otis  returns  to  San  Francisco  particularly  be 
cause  of  his  friendship  with  Ralph  Stackpole;  exhibitions 
of  Otis's  work;  his  bookbinding — learning  it  in  Paris; 
binding  erotic  books  for  Hollywood  people  on  special  com 
missions.  58 

Tape  3,  Side  B:   Otis's  illustrations  for  McTeague,  by  Frank 

Norris,  published  by  Colt  Press;  drawings  of  Telegraph  Hill 

people  in  early  1940s;  Otis's  Alaskan  trip — the  book  of  his 

journal  of  that  trip  commissioned  by  Grabhorn  Hoyem  Press, 

and  the  illustrations  he  did  for  the  book;  Otis's  death, 

May  18,  1969.  72 


INTERVIEW  THREE,  FEBRUARY  4,  1981 

Tape  4,  Side  A:   Helen's  brother  and  sister;  dates  of  teaching 
at  Hamlin  School;  birth  date;  how  Otis  worked,  his  schedule, 
hobbies,  views  from  his  studio;  World  War  II:  Moore  Shipyards, 
Army  Transport  Service,  Fort  Mason;  Helen's  volunteer  war  work 
with  Red  Cross  Bureau  of  Inquiry;  Helen  and  Otis  work  rehabili 
tating  wounded  veterans;  Helen  and  other  artists  review  and  jury 
artists  for  work  with  hospitalized  veterans;  Otis  hired,  Arts 
&  Crafts,  fall  1945;  Otis  fired  by  Spencer  Macky,  director  of 
California  College  of  Arts  &  Crafts;  move  to  Telegraph  Hill, 
October  1937;  the  Oldf ield-Wakef ield  nursery.  86 

Tape  4,  Side  B:   Nursery  story  and  reminiscences  of  Telegraph 
Hill — Cravath  and  Helen;  move  to  Russian  Hill  home;  Otis  takes 
over  dining  room  as  his  studio  space;  move  to  Joost  Street 
home,  bought  in  1960;  Helen's  experiences  teaching  at  St.  Rose 
Academy;  burst  appendix,  recovery,  and  finding  the  home  on 
Joost  Street;  artists  they  had  close  friendships  with:  Piazzoni, 
Rinaldo  Cuneo,  Stackpole,  Maynard  Dixon.  100 

Tape  5,  Side  A:  Maynard  Dixon;  mural  work,  and  restaurants, 

such  as  Elgin's  and  Coppa's;  Helen's  meeting  Archipenko's  wife 

at  Coppa's;  Otis's  impression  of  children  in  general — Maynard 

and  his  children;  difference  between  painters  and  musicians; 

Henry  Cowell;  Nelson  Poole  and  wife;  Poulanc;  Lucien  Labaudt, 

his  fashions,  painting,  attitude  to  women,  in  Burma  WWII;  how 

Poulanc  and  Otis  spoke  in  French;  Cuneo;  Moya  DelPino,  and 

marriage  to  Helen  Horst  (took  bookbinding  from  Otis);  anecdote 

about  DelPino  and  the  "fake"  Goya;  Horst  girls'  father  and 

Helen's  father  business  associates.  115 

INTERVIEW  FOUR,  FEBRUARY  18,  1981 

Tape  5,  Side  B:   Nathan  Oliviera,  student  of  Otis's,  1940-50; 
Otis's  retrospective  shows,  in  1976  and  in  1972;  trying  to  or 
ganize  a  show  of  Otis's  work  in  Sacramento;  Otis's  students — 
Oliviera,  Diebenkown,  Hassel  Smith;  Otis's  work,  considered 
avant  garde  when  he  returned  to  San  Francisco  from  Paris ,  yet 
later  on  considered  not;  Sam  Francis,  appearance  on  the  art 
scene;  Otis's  ideas  on  20th  century  art;  Helen's  ideas  on  ab 
stract  art  and  Marty's  saying  about  "insignificant  planes"; 
Otis's  feeling  about  Nature,  and  "decorative  art,"  including 
Arthur  Matthews;  Helen's  reminiscences  of  Isabel  Percy  West, 
as  person  and  as  teacher;  Otis's  teacher-student  relationships 
— Steve  Perun;  Otis's  preference  for  Renoir,  Matisse,  etc.       128 

Tape  6,  Side  A:   Diego  Rivera  visits,  1930s — Stock  Exchange 
and  Art  School  murals;  Oldf ields '  impressions  of  him  and  his 
"sweet,  kind"  nature;  Diego's  San  Francisco  social  life  and 


associations — living  in  Stackpole's  studio  at  728  Montgomery 
Street;  Gee  and  the  Chinese  cultural  group  he  founded  in  the 
1930s,  who  entertained  Rivera;  Gee's  exhibition  at  the  Oakland 
Museum  in  1980;  Billy  Justema  and  the  Synconatists;  Helen's 
memories  of  Frida  Rivera  in  the  1930s;  1939-40  Fair  and 
Rivera's  mural  work  there;  the  Riveras'  remarriage  in  San 
Francisco,  and  associations  to  that;  Jose  Clemente  Orozco, 
Covarrubias;  Rivera's  influence  on  art  and  artists  in  San 
Francisco,  and  on  the  Coit  Tower  mural   artists  Ray  Boynton, 
Ralph  Stackpole,  and  Victor  Arnautoff;  Otis's,  Cuneo's  and 
DelPino's  murals  for  Coit  Tower;  watching  the  artists  at 
work  on  the  murals;  Kenneth  Rexroth  and  the  artists  group  he 
tried  to  organize  during  the  mural  activity;  Otis's  love  of 
teaching;  Otis's  only  commercial  art  is  for  the  San  Francisco 
Call;  Otis's  ability  in  pencil  sketching  and  drawing,  devel 
oped  in  Paris.  142 

INTERVIEW  FIVE,  FEBRUARY  25,  1981 

Tape  6,  Side  B:   [details  of  information  that  is  found  to 

have  been  left  out  of  some  of  the  preceding  tapes  are  added 

here]:  Helen's  life — father's  objections  to  her  studying 

art,  and  Jimmy  Swinerton's  part  in  this;  story  about  what 

Kenneth  Rexroth  said  when  Otis  refused  to  join  Rexroth's 

artists  group — "you  are  an  anarchist" — to  which  Otis 

agrees,  but  relents  and  joins  for  a  short  time;  Otis's 

unsuccessful  venture  with  Ray  Bertrand  in  a  lithograph 

series.  157 

CONCLUSION,  by  Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse  and  Ruth  Cravath  Wakefield   162 
EPILOGUE,  by  Jayne  Oldfield  Blatchly  163 

INDEX  164 


PREFACE 


The  Introduction  which  follows  will  explain  to  the  reader  the  origins 
and  circumstances  of  this  oral  history  with  Helen  Oldfield.   Micaela  DuCasse 
and  Ruth  Cravath  have  really  performed  an  important  labor  of  historical 
love  here.   The  history,  by  Helen  Oldfield,  of  the  Oldfields  and  of  the 
San  Francisco  art  community,  complements  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office's 
interview  with  Ruth  Cravath,  and  the  interview  with  Elsie  Whitaker  Martinez, 
Micaela' s  mother.   Taken  all  together  they  constitute  a  solid  body  of 
knowledge  about  the  people  and  the  good  life  of  the  art  world  in  the  period 
from  the  twenties  to  the  sixties. 

The  interviewers  took  this  project  on  as  volunteers.   That  what  would 
exist  only  as  donated  tapes  for  listening  to  in  The  Bancroft  Library  now  has 
been  turned  into  a  usable  memoir  has  come  about  because  of  the  generosity 
of  Walter  Nelson-Rees,  James  Goran,  and  Catherine  Harroun. 

With  the  sum  of  money  these  friends  made  available,  the  Regional  Oral 
History  Office  chose  to  transcribe  the  tapes,  yet  leave  them  in  original 
form,  with  what  corrections  and  additions  could  be  inserted  by  the  inter 
viewers  and  interviewee  in  reviewing  the  transcript.   Occasional  misspellings, 
blank  spots,  or  incomplete  sentences  should  not  seriously  disrupt  the  reader's 
use  of  this  volume,  which  has  been  indexed  and  chaptered  by  the  interviewers. 

We  join  Micaela  DuCasse  and  Ruth  Cravath  in  thanking  the  underwriters  of 
this  project,  and  we  join  them  all  in  thinking  highly  of  this  memoir  and 
considering  it  a  very  fine  addition  to  the  Regional  Oral  History  Office's 
interviews  in  the  arts. 

Suzanne  B.  Riess 
Senior  Editor 


January  1982 

Regional  Oral  History  Office 
University  of  California 
Berkeley,  California 


ii 


INTRODUCTION 


Upon  his  return  from  Paris  in  1924,  Otis  Oldfield  rejoined  the  San 
Francisco  art  scene  and  he  became  renowned  as  an  artist  as  well  as  a 
teacher.   He  remained  consistently  an  individual  in  his  style  and  approach 
to  art,  never  going  along  with  the  style  changes  and  trends  of  that  time 
onwards  into  the  Abstract  Expressionism  of  the  1950s.   Nevertheless,  he 
was  a  colorful  member  of  the  Bay  Area  artists  group,  numbering  many  of  them 
as  close  friends  until  his  death  in  1969. 

His  widow,  Helen  Clark  Oldfield,  is  an  artist  in  her  own  right.   She 
shared  the  greater  part  of  Otis's  life  from  soon  after  his  return  to  San 
Francisco  in  the  mid-twenties,  until  his  death.   Fortunately,  she  is  able 
to  give  us  a  spirited  account  in  colorful  terms  of  their  family  backgrounds, 
their  lives  as  individual  artist  before  their  marriage,  as  well  as  their 
life  together  in  the  art  milieu  of  the  Bay  Area  in  the  thirties  through  the 
sixties . 

This  important  subject  for  an  oral  history  under  the  auspices  of  The 
Bancroft  Library  was  decided  upon  late  in  1980.   It  came  about  in  the  fall 
of  1980  when  Ruth  Cravath  Wakefield,  longtime  friend  of  Helen  Oldfield1 s, 
had  been  visiting  Helen  for  several  days  after  Helen  had  returned  from  a 
time  in  the  hospital.   They  reminisced  about  their  earlier  association  and 
Ruth  was  struck  by  the  remarkably  articulate  and  accurate  information  Helen 
gave  of  Otis's  and  her  life  in  the  art  world  of  San  Francisco.   Ruth  knew 
this  would  be  important  to  record  and  spoke  about  it  to  Catherine  Harroun 
and  Ruth  Teiser.* 

Knowing  of  Ruth's  longtime  friendship  with  Helen  Oldfield,  Catherine 
Harroun  and  Ruth  Teiser  thought  Ruth  Cravath  would  be  an  ideal  choice  as 
interviewer  for  Helen  Oldfield.   Ruth  Cravath  felt  that  she  did  not  have  the 
experience  to  do  it  alone  and  she  thought  of  another  longtime  friend  of  hers 
who  had  had  experience  with  tape  recording  procedures  while  working  on  a 
course  in  the  history  of  California  art,  Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse.  Micaela 
was  only  too  pleased  to  be  asked  to  team  up  with  Ruth  Cravath.  After  a 
session  with  Catherine  Harroun,  Ruth  Teiser,  and  the  Regional  Oral  History 
Office,  and  armed  with  clipboard,  tape  recorder,  and  a  suggested  beginning 
outline,  Ruth  and  Micaela  spent  the  afternoon  of  January  14,  1981  with  Helen 
Oldfield  in  her  home  on  Joost  Street,  San  Francisco,  on  the  first  interview. 


*Ruth  Teiser  and  Catherine  Harroun  interviewed  Ruth  Cravath  for:   Ruth  Cravath, 
"Two  San  Francisco  Artists  and  Their  Contemporaries,  1920-1975,"  an  oral 
history  conducted  1974-1975,  Regional  Oral  History  Office,  The  Bancroft  Library, 
University  of  California,  Berkeley,  1977,  365  pages. 


iii 


Interviewing  Helen  was  a  wonderful,  heartwarming  and  joyful  experience. 
She  proved  to  be  a  remarkably  articulate  and  orderly-minded  subject.  Her 
almost  total  recall  was  such  that  the  information  flowed  with  ease  and  clarity. 
She  was  forthright  in  recounting  family  origins,  characteristics,  and  her 
own  and  Otis's  activities  with  a  gentle  humor  that  suffused  it  all  with  a 
light  touch. 

This  quality  of  Helen's  reminiscences  was  especially  true  of  her  account 
of  Otis  Oldfield,  his  family  background,  and  life  in  Paris  and  return  to 
San  Francisco,  leading  up  to  their  life  together.  It  is  a  valuable  document 
of  one  of  San  Francisco's  most  distinguished  and  accomplished  artists.   It 
could  not  have  been  recorded  with  more  truth  and  completeness  by  Otis  himself. 
Helen  was  totally  aware  of  his  nature,  capabilities  and  significance  in  the 
period  of  the  art  of  San  Francisco  and  California  of  the  time-span  of  his 
life  and  work.   Perhaps  as  sympathetic  observer  and  full  sharer  in  the  greater 
part  of  his  artistic  and  creative  life,  she  could  give  a  more  candid  and 
well-rounded  picture  of  it  than  could  Otis  himself.   It  is  a  great  tribute 
to  Otis,  and  to  Helen  as  an  individual  artist  in  her  own  right  while  being 
so  much  a  part  of  him  and  his  life,  that  she  could  give  an  objective  as  well 
as  a  subjective  account  of  their  lives  and  times. 

The  interviews  were  spread  over  a  period  of  three  months,  with  six 
sessions,  from  which  five  one-hour  tapes  were  made.   The  final  session,  held 
March  18,  1981,  was  to  review  recordings  and  add  anything  that  Helen  deemed 
important  that  had  been  left  out. 

Personally,  I  was  enthralled  with  the  interviews,  as  I  had  heard  so  much 
about  Helen  Oldfield  through  the  many  years  of  my  friendship  with  Ruth  Cravath, 
and  admired  her  from  a  distance.   I  had  not  had  the  opportunity  of  meeting 
her,  as  an  adult,  until  the  first  interview  took  place.   All  that  I  had  heard 
and  built  up  about  her  in  my  own  mind,  was  confirmed,  and  I  came  away  from 
the  final  interview  feeling  that  I  had  gained  a  friend  of  great  worth. 

Very  shortly  after  the  final  interview  was  taped,  we  were  saddened  to 
learn  that  Helen  Oldfield  had  suffered  a  severe  stroke.   She  is  recovering 
slowly,  but  we  cannot  escape  feeling  that  it  was  providential  that  we  did  the 
oral  history  while  she  was  well  enough  to  have  entered  into  it  with  such 
enthusiasm  and  interest.   For  her  it  was  a  pleasure  to  relive  her  life  and 
that  of  Otis's,  and  to  know  that  it  was  to  be  documented  in  a  permanent  form, 
as  it  deserved  to  be  for  the  enrichment  of  the  total  history  of  California 
art  in  the  twentieth  century. 

For  Ruth  and  me,  it  was  not  only  a  labor  of  love,  but  a  most  enlightening 
addition  to  our  knowledge  of  California  art  history.  We  are  grateful  for  the 
opportunity  of  serving  the  cause  of  oral  history  documentation  under  the 
auspices  of  The  Bancroft  Library's  Regional  Oral  History  Program. 

Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse 

Ruth  Cravath  Wake field 
July  1981 
Piedmont,  California 


iv 


INTERVIEWS  ON  ARCHITECTURE,  ART,  DANCE,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  AND 
PHOTOGRAPHY  IN  THE  SAN  FRANCISCO  BAY  AREA 


Bound,  indexed  copies  of  the  transcripts  of  the  following  interviews  are 
available  at  cost  to  libraries  for  deposit  in  noncirculating  collections  for 
scholarly  research. 

Adams,  Ansel  (b.  1902),  Conversations  with  Ansel  Adams.  In  process. 

Brother  Antoninus  (b.  1912),  Brother  Antoninus:  Poet,  Printer,  and  Religious.  1966,  97  p. 

Asawa,  Ruth  (b.  1926),  Art,  Competence,  and  Citywide  Cooperation  for  San  Francisco. 

1975,  191  p. 
Bagley,  Julian  (b.1892),  Welcome  to  the  San  Francisco  Opera  House.  1973,  111  p. 

Boone,  Philip  S.  (b.  1918),  The  San  Francisco  Symphony,  1940-1972:  An  Oral  History. 
1978,  188  p. 

» 

Church,  Thomas  D.  (1902-1977),  Thomas  D.  Church,  Landscape  Architect.  A  two-volume 
study:  Vol.1:  Interviews  with  Theodore  Bernardi,  Lucy  Butler,  June  Campbell, 
Louis  DeMonte,  Walter  Doty,  Donn  Emmons,  Floyd  Gerow,  Harriet  Henderson,  Joseph 
Rowland,  Ruth  Jaffe,  Burton  Litton,  Germane  Milono,  Miriam  Pierce,  George  Rockrise, 
Robert  Royston,  Geraldine  Knight  Scott,  Roger  Sturtevant,  Francis  Violich, 
Harold  Watkin.  Vol.  II:  Interviews  with  Maggie  Baylis,  Elizabeth  Roberts  Church, 
Robert  Glasner,  Grace  Hall,  Lawrence  Halprin,  Proctor  Mellquist,  Everitt  Miller, 
Harry  Sanders,  Lou  Schenone,  Jack  Stafford,  Goodwin  Steinberg,  Jack  Wagstaff . 
1978,  803  p. 

*Coggins,  Herbert  L.  (1884-1974),  Herbert  Coggins:  From  Horatio  Alger  to  Eugene  Debs. 
1956,  172  p. 

Cravath,  Ruth  (b.  1902),  and  Dorothy  Puccinelli  Cravath  (1901-1974),  Two  San  Francisco 
Artists  and  their  Contemporaries,  1920-1975.  1977,  365  p. 

Cunningham,  Imogen  (1883-1976),  Portraits,  Ideas,  and  Design.   1961,  215  p. 

Dean,  Mallette  (1907-1975),  Artist  and  Printer.   1970,  112  p. 
*Graves,  Roy  D.  (b.1906),  Photograph  Collection.   1964,  79  p. 
*Gregg,  John  William  (1880-1969),  Landscape  Architect.   1965,  182  p. 

Hagemeyer,  Johan  (1884-1962),  Photographer.   1956,  107  p. 
*Hays,  William  Charles  (1873-1963),  Order,  Taste,  and  Grace  in  Architecture.   1968,  245  p. 

Howell,  Warren  R.  (b.1912),  Two  San  Francisco  Boohnen.   1967,  73  p. 

Lange,  Dorothea  (1895-1965),  The  Making  of  a  Documentary  Photographer.   1968,  257  p. 

Lehman,  Benjamin  H.  (b.1889),  Recollections  and  Reminiscences  of  Life  in  the  Bay  Area 
from  1920  Onward.   1969,  367  p. 


Lewis,  Oscar  (b.1893),  Literary  San  Francisco.   1965,  151  p. 

Macky,  E.  Spencer  (1880-1958)  and  Constance  (1883-1961),  Reminiscences.   1954,  121  p. 

Magee,  David  (b.1905),  Bookselling  and  Creating  Books.   1969,  92  p. 

Martinez,  Elsie  W.  (b.1890),  San  Francisco  Bay  Area  Writers  and  Artists.   1968,  268  p. 
Miles,  Josephine  (b.1911),  Josephine  Miles:  Poetry,  Teaching,  and  Scholarship..  1981. 

Morgan,  Julia,  Project,  2  volumes:  Volume  I  -  The  Work  of  Walter  Steilberg  and  Julia 
Morgan,  interviews  with  Walter  Steilberg,  Robert  Ratcliff,  Evelyn  Paine  Ratcliff, 
Norma  Jensen,  Jack  Wagstaff,  Edward  Hussey,  George  Hodges;  Reminiscences  of  the 
Department  of  Architecture,  University  of  California,  Berkeley,  1904-1954,  an 
interview  with  Warren  C.  Perry;  Walter  Steilberg,  Architect:  The  Man,  His  Times, 
His  Work,  by  Helena  Steilberg  Lawton.   1976,  374  p.  Volume  II  -  Julia  Morgan, 
Her  Office,  and  a  House,  interviews  with  Mary  Grace  Barren,  Dorothy  Wormser  Coblentz, 
Bjarne  Dahl,  Bjarne  Dahl,  Jr.,  Edward  Hussey,  Hettie  Belle  Marcus,  Polly  Lawrence 
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bound  volume  and  therefore  cost  more  to  prepare.  A  cost  estimate  will  be  given  upon 
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Library,  University  of  California,  Berkeley,  California  94720. 


Interview  with  Helen  Oldfield,  Interview  1 
Date  of  Interview:   14  January  1981 
Interviewer:   M.  DuCasse 
Transcriber:   Matt  Schneider 
Begin  tape  1,  Side  A 


DuCasse:   Well,  I  guess  we  should  just  begin  at  the  beginning:  where  you 

were  born,  and  when. 
Oldfield:   Have  you  got  it  on? 
DuCasse:   Yes,  it's  on  now. 
Oldfield:   I  was  born  in  1902  on  a  farm  about  ten  miles  out  of  Santa  Rosa. 

My  father  was  a  hop  grower.   And  I  was  born  on  the  farm  just  shortly 

before  the  1906  earthquake.   Well,  it  was  several  years.   I  shouldn't 

say  just  shortly;  that  sounds  as  though  it  was  the  same  year. 

But  it  was  1902,  and  the  earthquake  was  1906. 
DuCasse:   Well,  it  was  close  enough. 
Oldfield:   Anyway,  my  earliest  memories  are  of  sleeping  on  the  lawn  outside 

the  house  after  the  earthquake,  when  my  mother  was  so  frightened 

that  she  wouldn't  stay  in  the  house,  after  the  shaking  up  we  got. 

The  earthquake  was  very  strong  in  that  area,  too.   Let  me  see; 

what  else  of  interest  could  I  tell  you. 
DuCasse:   Maybe  a  little  about  your  mother  and  father?  Did  they  come  from 

some  other  part  of  the  country? 
Oldfield:   My  father  was  a  tenth  generation  American.   His  father  had  come  to 

California  during  the  Gold  Rush.  My  mother  had  British  parents. 

Her  mother  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  and  her  father  in  Devon.   They 


Oldfield:  met  in  this  country — that  is,  my  grandparents — and  married  in 
Illinois. 

I  have  been  told  some  things  about  this  early  period  of  my  life, 
which  I  can  relate,  but  actually  I  have  very,  very  slight  memories. 
I  do  remember  one  grandparent,  my  mother's  mother,  the  little  British 
woman.   She  was  the  only  grandparent  I  knew.   The  others  didn't 
survive  until  I  was  born. 

DuCasse:   That's  the  same  with  me.   I  never  knew  my  grandparents. 

Oldfield:   I  just  knew  one. 

Cravath:   And  you  had  a  British  mother. 

Oldfield:   You  had  a  British  mother,  too. 

DuCasse:   Yes.   In  fact,  my  grandfather  was  from  Yorkshire,  too. 

Oldfield:   I  met  your  mother  once,  long  ago.   Maybe  more  than  once.   I  don't 
remember  her  very  well.   I  used  to  go  with  a  group  of  students,  on 
your  father's  invitation,  when  we  were  in  his  class  at  Arts  and 
Crafts. 

DuCasse:    I  was  planning  to  ask  you  that  later  on. 

Oldfield:   You  were  a  little  kid  [laughter]  with  a  very  dark,  dutch-cut  hairdo. 
I  remember  you  as  a  little  girl,  and  I  didn't  see  you  again  for 
many,  many  years.   Of  course,  there's  been  a  great  deal  of  water 
under  the  bridge  before  that. 

DuCasse:   Indeed.   Well,  we'll  talk  more  about  that  later  when  we  come 
to  your  Arts  and  Crafts  experience.   But  let's  go  back  now  to 
that  dear  little  English  grandmother,  and  we  can  proceed  from 
there.   You  started  to  say  she  was  the  only  one  you  knew. 


Oldfield:   She  was  the  only  one  of  my  grandparents  that  I  ever  knew,  because 
she  lived  to  be  nearly  ninety.   Or  maybe  she  was  ninety;  I  don't 
remember  exactly  how  old  she  was.   But  she  was  around  ninety  when 
she  died.   She  died  in  1935.   And  by  this  time,  I  was  married  and 
had  a  couple  of  children  of  my  own. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  how  lovely  for  her!   So  she  knew  her  great-grandchildren. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  she  knew  two.   I  now  have  two  great-grandchildren  of  my  own. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  marvelous!   Then  you  lived  on  the  farm.   How  long  were  you  on 
the  farm? 

Oldfield:   After  the  earthquake,  which  shook  my  mother  up  quite  considerably, 
my  father  built  a  house  on  another  part  of  the  farm.   The  house 
where  we  lived  at  the  time  of  the  earthquake  was  a  two-story, 
frame  house  with  brick  chimneys  that  went  up  inside  the  walls. 
Through  the  bedrooms  on  the  second  floor,  these  brick  chimneys 
went  up  inside.   It  happened  that  my  parents  had  two  cribs  for 
their  two  children,  one  on  each  side  of  their  bed,  and  at  the 
head  of  each  crib  went  up  one  of  these  brick  chimneys .  When  the 
earthquake  came,  those  bricks  all  fell  into  the  room,  and  right 
over  the  sleeping  children.   This,  I  suppose,  is  what  made  it 
so  horrific  for  my  mother.   Anyway,  she  wouldn't  live  in  that  house 
anymore. 

So  my  father  built  a  house  for  a  temporary  residence  on 
another  part  of  the  farm,  a  small  house.   We  lived  there  for  a 
year  while  he  was  building  what  he  conceived  to  be  an  earthquake-proof 
house  in  the  town.   From  then  on,  he  was  a  town  resident,  who  was 


Oldfield:   still  farming. 

The  schools  I  went  to  were  all  in  the  town.   I  never  went  to  the 
country  schools,  except  for  short  periods.   In  hop  picking  seasons 
sometimes,  I  had  to  start  school  at  the  country  school.   But  most 
of  my  early  schooling  was  in  the  town. 

DuCasse:   A  city-dweller. 

Oldfield:   Well,  compared  to  my  cousins,  who  were  all  farmers,  you  see. 
I  went  to  grammar  school  there,  and  also  there  was  an  early 
junior  high  school  in  the  town,  one  of  the  first  experimental 
high  schools.   Because  I  was  an  obedient,  good  student,  I  got 
through  junior  high  with  some  already  earned  high  school  credit. 

DuCasse:   How  marvelous!   Do  you,  by  any  chance,  remember  the  name  of  that 
school? 

Oldfield:   The  junior  high?   Santa  Rosa  Junior  High  School,  that's  all  I 

know.   It  was  also  on  the  same  lot  as  the  high  school  building. 
It  was  very  close.   So  I  started  in  the  seventh  grade  taking 
German  and  French  and  algebra,  and  these  were  high  school  subjects. 
So  by  the  time  I  got  into  high  school,  I  already  had  some  high 
school  credits.   This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  I  finished 
high  school  at  the  age  of  sixteen. 

DuCasse:    Isn't  that  splendid. 

Oldfield:   I  don't  know  that  it  was  splendid,  but  it  just  happened.   I  didn't 
do  anything  except  what  came  naturally. 

Cravath:   You've  always  done  that,  though.   [laughter] 

Oldfield:   Anyway,  I  finished  high  school  at  the  age  of  sixteen.   It  happened 


Oldfield:   that  my  father  had  had  financial  reverses  at  that  time,  and  he 

couldn't  afford  to  send  me  to  college.   I  really  wanted  to  go  to 
art  school,  but  my  father  was  opposed  to  that  idea  because  of 
things  that  had  happened  in  his  family.   He  thought  that  women 
who  studied  art  came  to  no  good  ends.   He  didn't  want  me  to  go 
into  this. 

I  was  an  excellent  math  student,  and  I  was  accepted  at  Stanford 
as  a  math  major.   But  at  the  last  minute,  he  couldn't  afford  to 
send  me.   So  it  was  postponed  for  a  while.   After  two  years, 
during  which  my  mother  had  a  serious  illness,  he  felt  that  I  had 
earned  my  right  to  do  what  was  my  first  choice.   So  he  financed 
me  to  my  first  year  at  art  school,  which  was  Arts  and  Crafts  when 
it  was  over  there  on  Alls ton  Way.   The  old  building. 

DuCasse:   Helen,  when  did  you  first  know  that  you  wanted  to  be  an  artist? 
Do  you  remember? 

Oldfield:   I  really  can't  remember  for  sure.   I  know  it  was  quite  early. 

DuCasse:    Before  your  high  school  experience? 

Oldfield:   Yes.   Before  high  school. 

DuCasse:    I  was  interested,  because  sometimes  this  is  a  kernel  within  oneself 
that  finally  comes  out. 

Oldfield:   I  knew  very  early  in  life.   I  remember  having  this  awareness  when 
I  was  in  the  sixth  grade.   But  I  didn't  get  any  encouragement  at 
home,  because  my  father  not  only  felt  that  women  who  studied  art 
came  to  no  good  ends,  he  was  opposed  to  it  because  it  was  not  a 
remunerative  profession.   It  wasn't  practical,  and  it  wasn't  a  very 


Oldfield:   dependable  way  to  be  self-sufficient.   However,  he  made  no  objection 
when  I  announced  I  was  going  to  marry  an  artist. 

DuCasse:   That  was  certainly  the  climax  of  the  whole  thing,  wasn't  it? 
[laughter]   Retribution! 

Oldfield:   Well,  he  did  finance  my  first  year.   Or  maybe  two — I'm  not  quite 
sure  about  that — at  art  school.   I  had  a  friend  who  was  a  student 
at  Arts  and  Crafts,  and  old  high  school  friend,  and  I  boarded  with 
her  family  in  Berkeley. 

DuCasse:   Who  was  that,  Helen? 

Oldfield:  Her  name  was  Edith  Broadwell.  You  could  find — although  she  isn't 
Broadwell  anymore;  I've  forgotten  what  her  married  name  was.  But 
she  might  be  in  the  rolls. 

I  think  I  started  at  Arts  and  Crafts  in  1921. 

Cravath:    Strangely,  that's  the  year  I  came  to  California. 

Oldfield:   During  the  time  that  I  was  first  there,  I  first  met  your  father. 
I  wasn't  in  his  class  at  that  time,  because  he  was  not  burdened 
with  beginning  students,  you  know.   [laughter]   I  didn't  get 
into  his  class  until  I  had  been  through  the  water  color  schedule, 
and  had  become  quite  proficient  in  water  colors .   I  remember  Marty 
stomping  around  the  room  saying,  "Why  do  they  start  kids  on  water 
color?   It's  a  medium  for  masters!"  I  knew  what  he  meant;  but  water 
color  didn't  seem  to  do  as  much  permanent  damage.   I  think  that  was 
the  reason. 

DuCasse:   You  also  learn  some  good  discipline  in  water  color. 

Oldfield:   I  guess  so.   I  became  quite  good  at  water  color.   The  teacher  I 


Oldfield:   had  was  named  Miss  Rawlings ,  I  think — Rawlings  or  Rollins.   R-a-w. 
I  think  it  was  Rawlings.  Anyway,  when  she  had  to  be  absent,  she 
left  me  in  charge  of  the  class.   So  I  got  quite  a  reputation  before 
I  ever  got  into  Marty's  class. 

The  first  contact  I  had  with  him  was  life  drawing.   He  had  all 
the  little  prints  of  Jerome's  drawings  around  the  room.   He  used 
to  get  so  annoyed  with — most  of  his  class  were  these  fresh  kids 
just  out  of  high  school.   I  was  always  very  serious  and  hardworking, 
but  he  didn't  have  the  same  cooperation  from  everyone.   He  used  to 
stomp  around  the  room,  and  he'd  say,  "You  don't  know  who  you  have 
for  a  teacher!   Ask  any  of  the  great  artists  who  Martinez  is!" 

DuCasse:    Sounds  like  Marty!  * 

Oldfield:   They  didn't  pay  any  attention  to  him  at  all.   We  did  very,  very 
careful  line  drawings,  just  a  line,  a  sensitive,  delicate  line. 
He  wanted  no  shading  or  anything  except  the  outline  of  the  figure. 
It's  the  hardest  way  in  the  world  to  draw  a  nude. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  it  certainly  is.   Oh,  yes  indeed.   You  can't  fudge  on  that. 

Oldfield:   You  can't  fudge  on  that.   But  he  had  the  examples  on  the  wall  in 

(studio  in  paris) 
Jerome's  .      They  were  like  that. 

DuCasse:  Yes,  they  were  exquisite.  How  interesting,  because  by  the  time 
I  took  his  class  in  '26,  he  allowed  us  to  do  some  shading. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  he  did? 

DuCasse:   He  had  evidently  come  around  a  bit  to  that. 

Oldfield:  Well,  I  think  it  was  '21  or  '22.  I  don't  remember  exactly  when 

I  was  in  his  drawing  class.  Then,  of  course,  I  went  on  to  painting. 


*"Marty"   is   Xavier  Martinez.      Micaela  DuCasse   is    the   daughter  of 
Xavier  Martinez   and  Elsie  Whitaker  Martinez,   subjects   of   "San  Francisco 
Bay  Area  Writers   and  Artists,"   an  oral  history   conducted  1962-1963, 
Regional  Oral  History   Office,   The  Bancroft  Library,   University   of 
California,   Berkeley,    1969,   268  p. 


8 


Oldfield:   The  painting  studio  in  that  Alls ton  Way  building  was  way  up  in 
the  garret.   It  was  a  garret  room. 

Cravath:   You've  seen  that  place.   Did  you  study  there? 

DuCasse:   No,  but  I  was  a  model  for  his  class  once. 

Oldfield:   In  1926  it  would  have  been  where  it  is  now. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  it  was.   I  started  at  Broadway. 

Oldfield:   I  was  a  student  when  we  moved  to  Broadway.   The  students  were — 
I  was  about  to  say  ordered — but  we  were  all  persuaded  to  put 
physical  effort  into  that  move.   I  remember  that  I  was  busy  with 
a  hoe,  hoeing  the  weeds  around  the  little  area — I  don't  know  whether 
it  was  a  parking  area,  or  it  was  right  next  to  the  wall.   But 
anyway,  I  was  out  on  the  street,  and  I  was  busy  with  a  hoe. 
Somebody  from  across  the  street  saw  my  industry,  and  came  over 
and  offered  me  a  job.   [laughter]   Offered  me  a  job  hoeing,  I  guess. 
I  don't  know  exactly  what  it  was  that  I  was  going  to  do. 

DuCasse:   Nothing  could  be  more  practical  than  that! 

Cravath:   You  see,  Helen's  always  been  practical. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  have  I?   I'm  not  sure  about  that,  Ruth. 

Cravath:   Well,  maybe  not.  Maybe  that  should  be  qualified. 

Oldfield:   I  got  carried  away,  sometimes. 

DuCasse:   Well,  we  all  do. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  that  little  studio,  way  up  in  the  garret.   There  weren't 
any  beginning  students  inasmuch.   I  guess  I  must  have  been  in  my 
second  or  third  year  before  I  found  my  way  up  there.   Most  of  the 
students  were  more  experienced  than  I.   But  I  was  so  dedicated,  so 


Oldfield:   devoted,  so  intense  about  learning  to  paint  that  I  would  be  there 

early,  and  I  never  opened  my  mouth,  I  didn't  chat  at  all.   I  worked, 

so  Marty  used  me  as  an  example  to  the  others.   I  never  complained 

about  those  old  sprouting  onions  that  you  had  in  set-ups,  and 

everybody  else  would  come  in  and  say — 
Cravath:   The  copper  kettle — 

Oldfield:   The  copper  kettle  and  the  sprouting  onions. 
DuCasse:    I  was  still  doing  that  when  I  was  there  in  '26. 
Oldfield:   The  class  would  come  in,  and  they'd  say,  "Oh,  look  at  that!  Again!" 

or  "Still!"  He  would  point  out  that  I  just  got  to  work,  I  never 

complained. 

Then,  later  on — you  want  to  do  something  else  before  we  get  into 

my  experiences  with  Marty? 
DuCasse:   No,  no,  that's  fine. 
Oldfield:   I  can  go  on  into  that.    I'm  going  to  jump  quite  a  ways  to  the  time 

after  I  met  Otis. 
DuCasse:   Unless  there  was  anything  important  before  you  met  Otis — you  did 

some  work  on  your  own  before  you  met  him,  did  you  not? 
Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  I  did  some  work  on  my  own,  and  I  had  a  job  in  San  Francisco. 

I  kept  on  going  to  school  for  quite  a  while. 
DuCasse:    I  guess  if  went  through  '26,  then  you  would  have  been  there 

about  six  years,  altogether,  wouldn't  you? 

Cravath:   Helen,  did  you  go  to  the  California  School  of  Fine  Arts? 
Oldfield:   Yes,  but  I  don't  remember  when  I  went  to  the  California  School  of 

Fine  Arts.   But  I  know  that  I  was  in  Bufano's  class  at  the  California 


10 


Oldfield:   School  of  Fine  Arts — night  class,  because  I  was  working  then.   I 
was  still  living  with  my  parents,  whose  house  was  on  a  little 
dead  end  street  right  across  Broadway  from  Arts  and  Crafts. 
There  was  a  gas  station  on  the  lot  right  across  from  the  main 
entrance.   There's  a  little  dead  end  street  called  Hemphill  Place. 
It  comes  up  from  below  and  doesn't  go  through  to  Broadway.   Our 
house  was  on  that  street.   So  after  the  school  moved,  I  was  very 
close.   I  just  went  across  the  street. 

After  a  while,  I  ran  out  of  money,  and  I  had  to  get  a  job. 
I  answered  an  ad  in  one  of  the  papers,  I  guess  the  San  Francisco 
paper.   Somebody  who  wanted  what  they  called  a  sketch  artist 
to  work  in  a  sign  company.   They  made  electric  signs,  and  bill 
boards,  posters,  all  kinds  of  stuff.   Signboards — signs  that  were 
painted  by  the  sign  painter  on  the  board.   They  did  those.   So 
I  wrote  a  letter  in  answer  to  this  ad.   The  ad  was  for  a  young  man. 
I  wrote  a  letter  saying,  "Why  does  it  have  to  be  a  young  man?" 
and  gave  my  qualifications,  and  I  got  the  job. 

Cravath:   Good  for  you.   That  was  one  of  the  first  gestures. 

Oldfield:   That  was  when  I  first  discovered  about  female  harrassment.   I 

was  very  put  out  when  I  finally  had  to  decide  that  I  wasn't  hired 
entirely  on  the  basis  of  my  qualifications.   The  boss's  son  kept 
trying  to  get  me  to  go  out  to  lunch  with  him.   I  refused.   It 
was  the  same  old  story  that's  still  going  on.   Finally  I  decided 
that  I  wasn't  going  to  stay  there  anymore. 

By  this  time,  I'd  had  a  good  deal  of  experience.   I  had  not 


11 


Oldfield:   only  made  drawings  of  the  project  that  the  salesmen  brought  in, 
but  I  had  gone  into  the  shop  and  laid  out  the  signs  themselves. 
So  I  had  learned  what  was  needed  by  such  companies.   So  I  applied 
for  a  job  with  another  one.   I  just  went  for  one  interview,  and 
the  fellow  that  was  interviewing  me  put  his  arm  around  me  and 
asked  me  if  I  was  broad-minded.   I  never  went  back. 

Cravath:   Good  for  you! 

Oldfield:   I  never  went  back.   I  stayed  on  at  that  same  place  until  I 
married  Otis. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  the  name  of  that  first  place? 

Oldfield:   The  first  place  was  called  the  Novelty  Sign  Company.   It  was  on 
Turk  Street.   I  lived  in  Oakland,  so  I  used  to  walk  up  Market 
Street  to  Turk  Street,  and  a  couple  of  blocks  out  Turk  Street  to 
the  shop. 

DuCasse:   You  were  a  commuter  on  the  ferryboats  too,  then. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   I  was  a  commuter.   I  loved  that. 

DuCasse:   Wasn't  that  wonderful? 

Oldfield:   That  was  wonderful. 

DuCasse:   It's  a  lovely  way. 

Cravath:   We  used  to  get  breakfast — those  wonderful  corn  muffins  on  the — 

Oldfield:   I  don't  remember  the  breakfast.   I  remember  having  coffee  once 
in  a  while. 

Cravath:   They  had  the  most  wonderful  corn  muffins  I've  ever  eaten  anywhere! 
Southern  Pacific  corn  muffins.   I  used  to  love  to  get  breakfast 
on  the  ferry. 


12 


DuCasse:   About  how  long,  then,  did  you  work  at  the  sign  company? 

Oldfield:   Let  me  see.   If  I  started  in  '21,  I  was  still  going  to — Oh,  no, 

I  remember  now.   It  was  probably  about  1923  that  I  started  working 
at  the  sign  company.   I'd  had  two  years  of  art  school.   I  worked 
a  year  and  had  this  experience  of  trying  to  find  a  job  with  another 
company.   The  fortunes  of  the  company  where  I  was  working  fell 
off  a  little  bit.   They  didn't  have  enough  business,  I  guess — they 
weren't  doing  too  well.   So  there  wasn't  enough  work  to  keep  mjf 
busy  all  the  time.   So  I  asked  for  two  days  a  week  off.   At  first, 
the  boss  was  terribly  upset:   [gruffly]  "I  can't  afford  it;  you're 
not  worth  it." 

I  said,  "Well,  okay,  then  I'll  quit." 

He  came  back  and  said,  [whining]  "Well,  I'm  going  to  give  it 
to  you,  Miss  Clark."  So  he  gave  it  to  me.   I  spent  the  two  days 
that  I  had  off  at  Arts  and  Crafts.   I  think  I  was  painting  with 
Marty,  and  doing  design  with  Isabel  West.   Isabel  and  I  were 
good  friends.   I  used  to  go  to  her  house  in  Sausalito  all  the 
time. 

DuCasse:   She  would  have  appreciated  the  kind  of  student  you  were.   You 
were  very  conscientious,  motivated. 

Cravath:   We  didn't  know  each  other  in  those  days.   I  didn't  know  you  until 
I  knew  Otis. 

Oldfield:  The  first  time  that  I  remember  meeting  you  was  in  the  Monfcy  Block, 
and  you  were  next  door  to  Otis.  But  we  must  have  been  in  Bufano's 
class  at  the  same  time. 


13 


Cravath:   Not  if  you  were  in  the  night  class.   I  was  in  the  day  class. 
Oldfield:   Oh,  you  weren't  in  the  night  class.   No,  I  was  only  in  the  night 

class.   I  was  in  his  class  at  Arts  and  Crafts,  too,  with  Monty. 
Cravath:   Monty  went  to  the  California  School  of  Fine  Arts,  too,  in  the 

class  in  the  daytime. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  but  he  was  at  Arts  and  Crafts,  first. 
DuCasse:   Now,  who  was  Monty? 
Oldfield:   Ward  Montague.   He  was  a  sculptor.   I  remember  Monty  in  that  class 

in  Berkeley.   It  was  in  a  little  shed  out  in  back  of  the  building. 

You  know,  the  building  was  an  old  high  school. 
Cravath:   That  was  Benny's  sculpture  class. 
Oldfield:   The  sculpture  class.  Monty  had  modeled  a  head,  and  he  put  it 

between  two  boards  and  flattened  it.   Benny  asked  him,  "What  did 

you  do  that  for?" 

He  said,  "I  was  thinking  of  a  very  narrow-minded  person." 

[laughter]   Isn't  that  marvelous? 
Cravath:   That's  exactly  like  Monty. 
DuCasse:   Well,  that's  one  way  to  accomplish  it. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  just  put  it  between  two  boards  and  squashed  it. 
Cravath:   He  had  that  wonderful  sense  of  humor. 
DuCasse:   And  you  kept  this  up  while  you  were  working? 
Oldfield:   No,  this  was  before  I  worked.   This  was  during  my  first  two  years 

there.   I  was  a  full-time  student  for  two  years.   I  think  it  was 

two  years — I'm  sure  it  was  two  years.   It  wasn't  long  enough  to 

get  a  degree.  During  the  time  that  I  was  a  student  there,  they 


14 


Oldfield:   started  the  degree  program.  Mr.  Meyer  urged  me  to  work  for  a 

degree.   But  by  this  time,  I  had  met  Otis,  and  Otis  said,  "Whoever 
heard  of  an  artist  with  a  degree?"  Sounds  like  the  old-fashioned 
artists,  just  going  for  academic  degrees.   A  degree  doesn't 
guarantee  your  quality  as  an  artist;  you  have  to  earn  that 
otherwise.   And  everybody  knows  it  now.  We  think  of  it  as  a 
help. 

DuCasse:   Well,  it's  just  merely  a  tool. 

Oldfield:   A  tool,  and  also  it  is  a  credential. 

DuCasse:   A  credential  on  paper  which  someone  can  examine,  and  can  evaluate 
you. 

Cravath:    It  doesn't  make  you  a  good  artist  necessarily. 

Oldfield:   It  doesn't  make  you  a  good  artist,  and  Otis  liked  to  think  that 
it  didn't  guarantee  that  you  were  an  artist  at  all. 

DuCasse:   This  is  probably  quite  true  at  times. 

Oldfield:   The  paper  credential  he  looked  on  with  scorn.   And  I  guess  Marty 
would  have  too.   I  never  discussed  that  with  him. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  he  did,  because  he  didn't  want  me  to  get  a  degree.   They 
wanted  me  to  take  a  teaching  degree.   He  just  blew  his  stack. 
He  said,  "No,  she's  going  to  be  trained  the  way  I_  want  her  to 
be  trained.   She's  not  going  to  have  to  be  a  teacher,  or  to  be 
anything.   She's  just  going  to  be  an  artist."  So,  you  see,  he 
and  Otis  were  of  the  same  school. 

Oldfield:   I  turned  against  teaching  because  I  saw  that  the  people  I  started 
with — my  classmates  at  Arts  and  Crafts — were  all  going  to  be 
teachers .   I  suspected  them  of  doing  it  because  they  thought  it 


15 


Oldfield:   was  safer.   I  had  been  turned  off  of  teaching  in  my  high  school 
days.   I  had  a  math  teacher  of  whom  I  was  very  fond,  and  I  was 

* 

one  of  the  best  students,  so  she  was  very  good  to  me.   She  was 
a  beautiful  young  woman,  and  I  looked  at  her  with  such  great 
admiration  when  I  first  knew  her.   But  she  had  such  problems 
disciplining  her  class.   And  she  had  a  lot  of  boys  who  weren't 
interested  in  the  subject,  and  they  just  baited  her  all  the  time. 
They  gave  her  a  bad  time.   Said  insulting  things  in  loud  enough 
voices  for  her  to  hear,  and  dared  her  to  discipline  them,  and 
so  on.   So  she  was  so  filled  with  anger  most  of  the  time,  that 
as  I  looked  at  her,  she  turned  from  a  very  beautiful  person  into 
an  ugly  person.   I  don't  think  she  changed  actually;  it  was  the 
way  I  saw  her.   Because  I  saw  these  angry  moods  all  the  time, 
she  didn't  look  beautiful  anymore.   So  I  thought  then,  "It  this 
is  what  teaching  does  to  you,  I  don't  want  any  part  of  it." 
I  think  it  was  in  the  beginning  of  her  teaching  career  that 
she  was  filled  with  inspiration. 

So  this  turned  me  off  of  teaching,  and  also  my  roommate, 
whose  family  I  was  living  with,  was  going  into  teaching.   Oh, 
and  I  saw  also  that  after  the  first  two  years,  they  didn't  do 
any  more  studying  of  art.   They  had  to  learn  teaching  techniques, 
They  went  up  to  the  campus  for  classes  on — 

DuCasse:   To  Cal? 

Oldfield:   Yes.  We  were  very  close;  we  were  just  across  Oxford  Street. 
I  remember  Mr.  Officer,  who  taught  the  mechanical  drawing 


16 


Oldfield:   classes,  was  in  the  architecture  department  at  Cal.   He  would 
come  down.   He  used  to  come  down  from  there.   My  classmates 
who  were  preparing  to  be  teachers  spent  half  their  time  on  the 
Cal  campus.   They  were  not  present  in  the  drawing  and  painting 
classes  at  all  anymore.   They  had  to  take  things  like  sewing, 
and  all  of  the  crafts  which  were  offered  at  Arts  and  Crafts, 
because  Mr.  Meyer  was  a  craftsman,  you  know.   He  felt  that  the 
crafts  were  as  important  as  the  fine  arts,  and  he  stressed 
them.   He  offered  classes  in  just  about  everything  you  could 
think  of.   I  guess  that's  the  reason  that  Arts  and  Crafts  is 
more  dedicated  to  crafts  still  than  the  Art  Institute. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  it's  more  of  a  technical  school.   It's  always  maintained  its- 

Cravath:   And  it's  tighter,  too. 

Oldfield:   And  that's  the  reason,  because  Frederick  Meyer,  who  started  it, 
was  a  craftsman. 

DuCasse:    Then  his  wife  was  a  teacher,  she  had  been  a  teacher 


[end  tape  1,  side  A] 


17 


[Begin  tape  1,  side  B] 

Oldfield:  I  remember  Mrs.  Meyer  coming  into  the  classroom  and  giving  us  a 
lecture  on  chewing  gum.  She  chewed  gum  herself  furiously;  but 
she  said,  "You  can  chew  gum  like  a  lady."  I  guess  she  meant  by 
that  you  don't  open  your  mouth — that's  chewing  gum  like  a  lady. 
But  I  had  been  taught  that  ladies  don't  chew  gum.  And  I'm  sure 
I  wasn't  the  only  one. 

DuCasse:   A  few  years  later  she  was  going  against  cigarette  smoking  for  ladies, 
She  graduated.   She  disapproved  of  that  totally. 

Oldfield:   She  couldn't  disapprove  of  gum,  because  she  was  addicted  to  it 

herself.   So  she  had  her  own  ploy.   But  she  was  such  a  sweet, 

* 

generous-hearted  little  woman.   She  was  so  kind  to  those  students. 

So  many  of  them  were  hard  up;  they  wanted  to  go  to  art  school,  and 

there  was  quite  a  population  of  what  they  called  D.A.V.  students. 

Those  were  Disabled  American  Veterans.   You  see,  it  was  right 

after  World  War  I — 
Cravath:   We  called  them  Federal  Board  Students  at  the  California  School 

of  Fine  Arts. 

DuCasse:    I  remember  my  father  talked  about  that. 
Oldfield:   That  reminds  me  of  Walt  Kuhn  saying  that  Lucien  Labaudt  was  a 

government  whore,  because  he  worked  WPA.   [laughter] 
DuCasse:    So  you  had  these  fellows  from  World  War  I. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  and  they  were  quite  a  population  at  the  school.   I  think 


18 


Oldfield:   that  they  were  very  important  to  the  financial  stability  of  the 
school,  because  a  lot  of  the  other  students  were  people  who  were 
either  trying  to  make  a  living,  or  earn  the  money  to  pay  their 
tuition  at  the  same  time  that  they  went  to  school,  or  were  casting 
around  for  scholarships  or  someplace  to  borrow  it,  because  they 
really  didn't  have  any  financial  background  that  may  have  been 
stable. 

DuCasse:    I  imagine  that  the  Meyers  did  a  lot  of  work  scholarships  around 
the  place  for  the  students. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  they  did.   Louis  Miljaridfc   a  working  scholarship  when  I 

was  there.  He  was  one  of  the  janitors.  He  had  a  working  scholar 
ship.  That  was  still  going  on  when  Otis  was  teaching  there,  after 
World  War  II. 

But  Mrs.  Meyer  was  the  one  who  engineered  that.   She  was  so 
warm-hearted  and  generous  and  kind  that  she  couldn't  turn  anyone 
away.   In  spite  of  her  hang-ups  about  gum,  she  was  a  wonderful 
person.   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   Yes,  she  was  indeed. 

Oldfield:   I  knew  Babs  as  a  young  girl.   She  was  there. 

Cravath:   Was  that  her  daughter? 

Oldfield:   That  was  the  Meyers'  daughter. 

DuCasse:   Babs  was  such  a  frail-looking,  ethereal-looking  girl. 

Oldfield:   She  was  in  high  school,  I  think.   Yes,  she  was  terribly  over-pro 
tected.   But  she  managed  to  weather  it  okay. 

DuCasse:    She  is  a  sweet  person.   She's  still  with  us. 


19 


Oldfield:   Do  we  go  on  to  what  happened  to  me  after  I  left  Arts  and  Crafts, 
after  I  married  Otis? 

DuCasse:   Absolutely,  if  you  feel  you've  told  us  enough  about  your  own  art 
student's  work.   While  you  were  doing  your  commercial  job,  and 
after  maybe  you  had  stopped  going  to  classes,  were  you  doing  any 
of  your  own  work  while  you  were  working? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  was  always  painting.   This  takes  me  back  to  another  little 
incident  which  involves  Marty.   I  met  him  one  night  in  the  Ferry 
Building.   I  had  been  in  his  classes  at  Arts  and  Crafts  for  two 
or  three  years.   I  don't  think  I  still  was — yes,  I  had  to  be, 
because  when  I  met  him,  it  was  in  the  Ferry  Building;  we  were 
both  headed  for  the  Piedmont  train.   So  we  rode  over  on  the  train 
together.   I  talked  to  him  about  Otis,  and  he  said  he  had  met  him. 

Shortly  after  that,  I  was  recruited  by  Otis.   I  was  a  night 
student  at  the  old  California  School  of  Fine  Arts,  up  where  the 
Mark  Hopkins  Hotel  is.   Otis  had  just  come  back  from  France. 
That  was  where  I  first  saw  him,  as  a  matter  of  fact.   He  used  to 
come  up  there  and  recruit  students  for  a  private  class  that  he 
had  in  the  old  Artists'  Building.   It  was  in  a  studio  which  was 
occupied  by  Clifford  White,  and — what  was  her  name? 

Cravath:   Wasn't  it  on  Sacramento  Street? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was  in  the  old  Artists'  Building.   Leidesdorf  and 

Sacramento.   Carol  Wirtenberger  and  Clifford  White  had  a  studio 
there.   Otis  had  his  first  San  Francisco  class  in  that  studio. 
I  remember  Monty  and  UresJca  were  in  the  class.   Helen  Moya,  who 
was  Helen  Horst  at  that  time,  and  her  sisters — they  came,  driven 


20 


Oldfield:   by  the  chauffeur.   I  used  to  go  after  my  day's  work.   I  would  go 
and  stop  there  and  paint  in  that  class.   I  took  some  of  the 
paintings  that  I  did  to  Marty's  class,  and  showed  them  to  him. 
He  had  already  told  me  he  knew  Otis,  and  I  thought  he'd  be 
interested  in  what  I  was  doing,  and  he  was.   But  he  looked  at 
them  and  he  said,  "Hm.   Picasso,  but  not  understood!"   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   He  was  a  man  of  few  words. 

Oldfield:   I  was  a  little  bit  crushed,  but  not  totally.   I  kept  on  going  to 
Otis'  class — 

DuCasse:    I'm  sure  Otis  didn't  tell  you  things  like  that. 

Oldfield:   No,  not  at  that  time,  anyway.   He  told  me  some  pretty  brutal 

things  later.   Not  at  that  time.   And  of  course,  I  probably  didn't 
understand  what  I  was  doing.   I  remember  that  Otis  had  some  very 
weird  hang-ups  about  painting  at  that  time.   He  liked  to  paint 
things  that  were  under  a  table,  because  the  table  cast  a  shadow, 
made  a  half  light.   He  would  set  up  his  still  life  studies  under 
the  table.   I  used  to  take  in  the  things  that  I  had  done  on  my  own. 
One  day  I  took  in  something  that  had  a  glass  pitcher  or  something 
in  it.   I  showed  it  to  him,  and  he  said,  "Oh!   I  had  a  dream  about 
that!   I  dreamed  that  somebody  painted  glass.   Don't  ever  show 
me  anything  like  that  again!"  It's  so  tricky:   all  those  high 
lights,  all  the  little  intricacies  of  glass — he  disapproved  of 
that.   It  wasn't  direct;  it  wasn't  a  simple  statement:   he  didn't 
like  it. 

I  went  on  painting  on  my  own.   But  I  still  had,  until  I  met  Otis, 


21 


Oldfield:   this  hang-up  about  the  sanctity  of  oil  paints,  which  I  got,  I  think, 
from  having  been  started  out  in  water  color,  and  prohibited  from 
using  oil  paint  until  I  was  an  advanced  student.   But  Otis  sure 
knocked  it  out  of  me:   he  wouldn't  have  anything  to  do  with  water 
color.   He  was  even  worse  than  Marty.  Marty  said  it  was  a  medium 
for  masters;  and  Otis  felt  that  it  was  a  tricky,  impermanent  medium. 
It  was  tricky.   He  was  always  afraid  of  anything  tricky.   Anyway — 
I  say  "anyway"  all  the  time.   Your  tape  is  going  to  be  full  of  those 
"anyways." 

DuCasse:   Well,  you  haven't  said  too  many.   It's  all  right.   It's  a  little 
predictable. 

Oldfield:   That's  why  I  say  it.   But  it's  a  pretty  obvious  and  stupid  remark. 

DuCasse:        It  hasn't  grated  on  my  ears  yet. 

Oldfield:   You  tell  me  if  it  does.  I'll  try  to  avoid  it.   Now,  where  do  we 
go  from  here? 

DuCasse:   You  were  in  Otis'  class,  that  special  class — how  did  your  romance 
come  about?  Was  it  a  long  time? 

Oldfield:   I  must  tell  you  the  story  of  the  first  time  that  I  saw  him.   It 
was  at  the  night  school  in  that  old  building  up  on  Nob  Hill.   I 
was  in  Spencer  Macky's  drawing  class  at  that  time.   That  was  after 
the  time  that  I  was  in  the  sculpture  class.   But  I  always  went 
at  night  until  after  Otis  started  teaching  there.   I  went  to 
his  classes  sometimes  with  him.   But  I  was  always  a  night  student 
at  the  San  Francisco  school,  because  I  was  working  downtown. 
I  would  go  at  night.   The  first  class  that  I  had  was  Bufano's 


22 


Oldfield:   night  sculpture  class.   Then  I  moved  into  the  life  drawing  class 
of  Spencer  Macky.  All  the  life  drawing  I  had  done  up  to  that 
time  was  with  Marty,  and  it  was  just  this  very  delicate  line. 
I  had  never  built  a  figure  the  way  I  learned  to  do  it  in  Macky 's 
class  at  all.   It  had  always  been  that  very  delicate,  descriptive 
line.   It  had  to  be  delicate  to  please  him,  and  had  to  be  meaningful. 
I  don't  know  that  I  ever  achieved  it,  but  I  tried. 

Anyway,  I  was  in  this  night  life  drawing  class;  it  met  three 
evenings  a  week  for  three  hours .   On  Fridays  there  was  a  break 
which  was  supposed  to  be  for  an  anatomy  lecture.   There  was  an 
assembly  room.   Spencer  would  stand  there  holding  the  hand  of  the 
skeleton,  and  reminiscing  about  how  his  wife  put  him  to  sleep  when 

she  read  to  him  in  bed.   He  didn't  get  to  anatomy  very  much. 

O 

I  had  had      .         for  anatomy,  and  I  knew  all  the  names 

of  all  the  bones,  and  all  the  muscles — their  popular  names  and 
their  Latin  names — I  had  really  had  a  workout  in  anatomy.   So  I 
didn't  need  to  hear  what  Spencer  was  talking  about  at  all.   He 
hardly  ever  touched  on  anatomy. 

One  night  we  went  in  there — the  model  stopped  posing  while 
Spencer  was  lecturing.   So  everybody  either  sat  in  an  empty  studio 
until  he  was  through  or  trooped  into  the  lecture  hall  and  listened 
to  him.   I  went  and  listened  to  him,  and  I  went  with  a  group.  We 
walked  in,  and  we  saw  that  there  were  a  lot  of  people  in  street- 
clothes  there;  it  wasn't  all  students.   There  were  a  lot  of  people 
in  there.   We  knew  some  of  them;  I  remember  the  Blendings  were 


23 


Oldfield:   there,  and  Gertrude  Albright  and  her  husband.   A  lot  of  the 

people  that  I  knew  were  practicing  artists,  and  not  students. 
So  we  knew  something  was  up.   Sure  enough,  Spencer  got  up  and 
said  he  met  this  most  interesting  person  who  had  just  come  back 
from  a  long  sojourn  in  France,  and  he  introduced  Otis.   That 
was  the  first  time  I  saw  him. 

Cravath:   He  was  formally  introduced. 

Oldfield:   He  was  formally  introduced.   So  I  sat  there  and  listened  to  him 
talk.   I  don't  remember  a  word  of  what  he  said,  but  I  remember 
that  at  the  end,  one  of  the  artists  who  were  present,  asked 
him,  "Do  you  mean  to  say  that  it  isn't  necessary  to  use  a  brush 
to  paint?" 

And  Otis  said,  "No,  put  it  on  with  an  old  shoe  if  you  feel  like 
it!"  He  was  way  ahead  of  his  time,  because  after  a  while  they  did 
that.   But  this  was  in  the  early  twenties.   There  wasn't  any 
blob  and  splash  painting  around  at  that  time,  at  least  not 
here. 

Anyway,  that  was  my  introduction  to  him.   Then  after  that, 
he  used  to  drop  in  to  the  night  classes  and  talk.   Do  you  remember 
Frank  Dunham       ?  He  was  a  student  in  the  drawing  class 
where  I  was,  and  he  and  a  few  others,  like  Julius  Palmer,  sometimes, 
when  we  didn't  go  into  the  anatomy  lecture,  we  would  sit  around 
the  studio  and  talk.   I  remember  both  of  them  told  me  they 
thought  Otis  was  crazy.   They  both  thought  he  was  crazy  because 
his  claims  were  fantastic  to  them.   They  thought  that  he  was 


24 


Oldfield:   making  claims  that  he  couldn't  possibly  fulfill.   Anyway,  I  remember 
that. 

During  one  of  the  visits,  when  Otis  came  in  he  told  me  that  he 
was  about  to  have  a  show  at  the  old  Beaux  Arts  gallery. 

Cravath:    I  remember  that  show  well. 

Oldfield:   Do  you  remember  that  show? 

Cravath:   Oh,  yes! 

Oldfield:   I  was  working,  and  I  worked  half  the  day  Saturday.   So,  on  my  way 
home  one  Saturday  when  I  knew  that  that  show  was  on,  I  stopped  in 
at  the  gallery.   Remember  there  was  a  little  stairway  that  went 
up  from  Maiden  Lane,  and  there  was  a  little  landing  where  Bea  Ryan 
had  a  little  Chinese  table  and  a  couple  of  chairs.  When  I  went 
in,  Otis  was  sitting  there  at  that  little  table  smoking  his  pipe. 
I  couldn't  get  in  because  the  door  to  the  gallery  was  closed. 
He  said,  "Oh,  they're  talking  about  me  in  there;  it  embarrasses 
me."  That  was  another  thing  that  I  thought  was  kind  of  silly  later 
because  he  never  got  embarrassed  at  anything!   [laughter]   Anyway, 
he  was  sitting  outside  while  Bea  was  talking  about  his  show. 
He  sort  of  cornered  me,  like  the  wedding  guest.   I  had  to  sit 
down  in  the  other  chair,  and  he  talked  and  he  talked  and  he  talked; 
I  was  spellbound.   He  wouldn't  let  me  go.   And,  do  you  know,  he 
didn't  remember  he  had  seen  me  before.   He  just  cornered  me  and 
wouldn't  let  me  go  in  because  he  was  bored:   he  wanted  somebody 
to  talk  to.   So  I  never  got  in  to  see  the  show  at  that  time.   I 
saw  it  later. 

Cravath:    I  remember  that  show  very  well. 


25 


Oldfield:   So  that  was  the  second  time  I  saw  him;  and  that  time  I  actually  met 
him.   Then  I  think  it  was  a  couple  of  years — no,  it  couldn't  have 
been  that  long — it  could  have  been  over  a  year,  anyway,  after  that 
before  he  started  writing  me  notes  and  inviting  me  to  his  studio. 
By  that  time  he  had  moved  down  from  Sacramento  and  had  a  studio 
in  the  MonkeySlock.   He  used  to  write  me  notes,  and  invite  me  to 
come  and  see  the  latest  paintings.   So  I  made  several  visits  to  his 
studio.   I  had  been  his  student  briefly  in  that  studio  of  Carol 
Wirtenberger's ;  but  that  had  come  to  an  end  quite  a  long  while  before. 
However,  he  had  my  name  and  address,  I  guess,  so  he  started  writing 
me  notes.   I  went  to  the  studio. 

Then  he  started  inviting  me  to  go  places  with  him.   I  remember 
one  of  the  first  dates  that  I  had  with  him;   he  had  an  old  car  by 
this  time,  and  we  were  driving  somewhere  south  of  the  city,  down 
the  peninsula  somewhere  on  a  road  that  was  a  sort  of  a  back  road, 
a  dirt  road.   He  had  a  flat  tire,  and  he  didn't  know  how  to  change 
it.   But  I  did.   I  told  him  how  to  get  the  jack  out  and  jack  up 
the  car.   [brief  telephone  interruption]   I've  forgotten  where 
we  were. 

DuCasse:   You  were  talking  about  Otis — 

Oldfield:   Oh,  and  changing  the  tire  for  him.   I  was  knowledgeable  about  it 
because  I'd  helped  my  father  many  times.   He  had  never  changed  a 
tire  before.   He  was  aghast!   He  thought  he  was  going  to  have  to 
walk  to  the  nearest  garage  to  get  some  help.   I  got  out  and  helped 
him. 


26 


Oldfield:   Some  young  people  drove  by — some  really  collegiate  types — and  they 
yelled  at  me,  "Atta  girl!"   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   You  were  very  modern. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  was  very  modern.   It  was  the  era  of  very  short  skirts,  you 
know,  so  I  guess  I  was  pretty  conspicuous.  Anyway,  I  helped  him 
change  a  tire.   That  was  the  first  date  we  had. 

Then  we  started  going  on  trips  to  various  places,  in  the  country 
mostly.   He  charmed  me  by  singing  little  French  love  songs  to  me 
and  all  that  sort  of  stuff. 

DuCasse:   That  would  make  a  big  impression. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  made  a  big  impression  on  me.   I  was  just  a  kid  from  the 

country  at  that  time.   The  French  flavor  impressed  me  to  begin  with. 
And  he  knew  all  these  charming  little  songs.   He  didn't  sing,  but 
he  sang  it  well  enough  to  get  the  idea  over.   I  remember  once  we 
were  sitting  in  a  little  family  cemetery  which  was  near  the  farm 
where  I  was  born — it  wasn't  on  it,  but  it  was  in  that  area — I  had 
shown  him  this  little  cemetery  that  was  rather  neglected.   He 
afterwards  made  quite  a  number  of  drawings  of  it.   It  apparently  made 
an  impression  on  him.   We  were  sitting  there;  I  think  we'd  brought  a 
picnic  lunch,  and  we  were  sitting  eating  the  lunch  there.   He 
started  singing  these  sentimental  little  French  songs. 

This  developed  into  a  companionship  which  pretty  much  shut 
me  off  from  almost  everyone  else  for  a  while,  because  he  monopolized 
my  time.   He  used  to  get  very  angry  if  I  was  late  to  an  appointment. 

DuCasse:   Did  you  usually  take  drives  out  in  the  country? 


27 


Oldfield:   Yes.   He  had  a  little  old  Chevy — I  have  some  pictures  of  it — 
it  looks  like  a  crackerbox  on  wheels,  by  the  standards  of  the 
way  cars  look  now.   It  was  a  little  Chevy.   It  was  what  he  called 
a  "two-and-a-half  seater."  I  mean,  there  was  a  little  place  behind — 
there  was  a  bench  seat  for  the  driver  and  one  passenger,  and 
behind,  there  was  room  for  somebody  else  to  squeeze  in,  but  just 
one  other  person. 

Cravath:   They  called  that  a  flip  seat — or  something. 

Oldfield:   Anyway,  he  had  this.   He  drove  it  very  recklessly.   I  had  been 
driving  for  quite  a  long  while,  and  it  was  the  first  car  he  had 
ever  owned.   Somebody  told  him  when  you  hit  cordouroy  road,  one 
that's  very  bumpy,  what  you  do  is  step  on  the  gas  and  hit  the 
high  spot.   So  we  were  driving  on  a  back  road  once  among  some  farms, 
and  he  took  it  literally  and  stepped  on  the  gas,  and  he  hit  a  little 
pig  and  killed  it.   Oh,  he  was  so  upset.   Also,  he  thought  that  he 
had  turned  me  off  on  him  for  good,  because  I  was  upset  too.   I 
looked  back  and  saw  this  poor  little  thing  in  the  road.   This 
thing  of  stepping  on  the  gas  was  so  totally  wrong! 

DuCasse:    But  he  found  that  out,  didn't  he? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  found  it  out  eventually. 

DuCasse:   How  long  do  you  think  your  courtship  lasted,  more  or  less? 

Oldfield:   We  were  married  in  November  of  1926.   That  was  a  little  more  than 
two  years  after  he  landed  here  from  France.   I  don't  know  how  long 
he  had  been  back  that  first  night  when  he  lectured  at  the  school. 
And  there  was  some  time  between  that  and  the  time  when  I  started 


28 


Oldfield:   seeing  him  quite  regularly.   So  I  would  say  the  courtship  lasted 
about  a  year.   I  wouldn't,  certainly,  begin  it  from  the  time  I 
first  saw  him,  or  even  include  the  time:/when  I  sat  and  talked 
to  him  while  Bea  Ryan  was  lecturing  in  the  other  room.   From 
that  until  the  time  he  started  writing  me  notes  was  quite  a 
while.   The  short  period  when  I  was  in  his  class  in  Carol  Wirtenberger's 
studio  came  in  between  there. 

* 

DuCasse:    So  it  was  more  personal  when  he  began  writing  you  those  notes. 

His  personal  interest  began  to  manifest  itself  to  be  a  courtship. 

Oldfield:   Then  it  began. 

DuCasse:   After  you  were  married,  where  did  you  live?   In  San  Francisco? 

Cravath:   Let  me  interrupt  here,  dear,  because  that  wedding  is  something 
that's  worthy  of  quite  a  bit  of  coverage.   I'll  never  forget 
Helen  and  Otis's  wedding  in  Ralph  Stackpole's  stoneyard. 

DuCasse:   Helen,  would  you  like  to  give  us  a  description  of  that? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  can  do  it.   I  usually  show  the  scrapbook  when  people  want 

to  know  about  it,  because  it's  more  complete.   But  I  can  reminisce 
about  it  a  little  bit  and  tell  you  something  about  it.   At  the 
time — it  was  November  30,  1926 — Dorothea  Lange  had  a  photography 
studio  in  the  upstairs  studio,  which  was  the  studio  that  Ruth  later 
had.   It  was  Ralph  Stackpole's  studio.   At  the  time  that  we  were 
married,  Dorothea  Lange  was  renting  it,  and  she  was  doing  photo 
graphy  there.   In  fact,  I  have  a  picture  of  Otis  and  me  in  the 
bedroom  that  she  took  there. 

When  we  decided  to  get  married,  my  family  was  a  little  disturbed 


29 


Oldfield:  because  it  was  taken  completely  out  of  their  hands.  When  Otis 
announced  to  Ralph  that  there  was  going  to  be  a  wedding,  Ralph 
said,  "I  want  it  in  the  studio." 

The  decorations  were  by  Stafford  Duncan  and  Lucien  Labaudt,  and 
Stack,  I  guess — I  don't  know  who  else.  There  were  Chinese  banners 
hanging  from  the  wall. 

DuCasse:   Think  of  that,  against  those  brick  walls! 

Oldfield:   They  set  up  a  tree  trunk  which  Ralph  was  planning  to  carve,  that 
was  in  the  studio,  as  the  altar.   Two  ribs  from  an  old  Gold  Rush 
days  ship,  which  had  been  excavated  there  in  the  early  days. 
Ralph  had  saved  them.   So  they  set  them  up  and  made  a  Gothic  arch 
out  of  them.   From  the  peak  of  the  arch,  they  had  wired  three  rusty 
horseshoes  that  dangled  from  the  peak  of  the  arch.   The  altar  was 
decorated  with  Autumn  garden  splendor — corn,  squash — all  very  colorful. 

DuCasse:   Beautiful.   The  fruits  of  the  earth. 

Oldfield:   That  was  when  I  met  Henry  Ohlhoff . 

Cravath:   He  was  the  one  that  performed  the  ceremony,  wasn't  he? 

Oldfield:   Yes.   Henry  Ohlhoff  at  that  time  was  the  vicar  of  the  little  church 
of  St.  Mary  the  Virgin,  which  is  a  fashionable  church  now.   He  was 
the  vicar  there  at  the  time.   He  performed  the  ceremony.   It  was  a 
high  church. 

People  congregated  in  Dorothea's  studio  upstairs.   Then  there  was 
a  rickety  old  stairway  that  went  down  from  there  to  the  stoneyard 
where  the  ceremony  took  place.   Ellen  Dear,  with  a  piano,  played 
wedding  march  up  in  the  studio,  and  I  came  down  the  stairs  with 


30 


Oldfield:   the  one  attendant  that  I  had.   We  came  down  the  stairs,  and  my 
father  was  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  and  took  me  to 
the  altar  where  Otis  was.   It  was  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening; 
it  was  very  dark.   They  had  illuminated  the  yard  with  Chinese 
lanterns  and  brick  soaked  in  kerosene  set  on  fire.   It  was  really 
a  sort  of  a  pagan  setting. 

Henry  Ohlhoff  was  in  his  fanciest  robe,  and  the  whole  thing 
was  the  traditional  wedding  ceremony.   I  had  a  granddaughter 
who  was  married 


[end  tape  1,  side  B;  begin  tape  2,  side  A] 


Oldfield:  .  at  two  of  my  granddaughter's 

weddings . 

Cravath:   Always  worth  attending.   If  you  get  an  invitation,  do    accept  it. 
Oldfield:   I'm  not  going  to  be  anymore  for  a  little  while. 
DuCasse:   Why  don't  you  tell  us  about  your  wedding  dress? 
Oldfield:   It  was  black. 

Cravath:   That's  all  I  remember. 

had 
Oldfield:   It  was  black  because  Otis  this  disciple,  a  very  devoted  disciple, 

and  Chinese  boy  named  ^Un  Gee. 

Cravath:   Did  you  see  his  show  over  at  the  Oakland  museum? 
Oldfield:  Yun  's  mother  was  in  China.  Yun  ancl  Otis  had  spent  the  summer 


31 


Oldfield:   of  1926  on  a  painting  trip  into  the  Sierras.   They  went  to  Sutter's 
Fort,  and  the  southern  mines  mostly — in  Otis'  little  jalopy. 
They  both  painted.   Yun.,  was  very  devoted  to  Otis;  he  couldn't 
do  enough  for  him.   So  when  he  heard  that  he  was  going  to  be 
married,  he  wrote  to  his  mother  in  China,  and  she  wove  the  silk 
for  the  wedding  dress.   But  when  it  came,  it  was  black.  White 
is  mourning  in  China.   It  should  have  been  red?  Why  didn't  she 
make  it  red?   I  don't  know.   It  was  black,  anyway.   But  she  didn't 
know  it  was  the  color  of  mourning  here.   So  I  made  my  dress  of  it 
anyway . 

It  was  just  a  simple  sort  of  a  shift,  a  little  bit  shaped,  with 
an  off -shoulder  neckline. 

Cravath:   Do  you  still  have  it,  Helen? 

Oldfield:   Oh,  no,  I  don't  have  the  dress.   I  remodeled  it  and  made  a  maternity 
dress  out  of  it!   [laughter]   There's  a  practical  side  to  everything. 

Cravath:    I  told  you  she  was  practical. 

DuCasse:   Well,  that's  good.   There  are  not  many  wedding  dresses  that  can 

be  adapted  to  that  kind  of  thing.  Very  good.   You  were  very  sensible. 

Oldfield:   I  don't  know  how  I  did  it,  but  I  did.   I  put  some  gussets  in, 
no  doubt.   And  it  was  still  pretty  tight  at  the  end,  I'm  sure. 

DuCasse:   You  had  a  very  beautiful  traditional  ceremony.   Then  I  suppose 
you  must  have  had  a  party  afterwards 

Cravath:   We  danced  in  the  Modern  Gallery.   Do  you  remember  the  Modern  Gallery? 

DuCasse:   No,  I  don't  believe  I  do. 


32 


Cravath:    It  was  adjacent  to  the  stoneyard.   We  danced  in  the  Modern  Gallery. 
It  was  very  fashionable. 

Oldfield:   And  Yun  's  paintings  were  on  the  wall.   The  music,  as  I  remember, 

was  a  drum,  an  acordion,  and  what  was  the  other — a  horn,  or  a  violin? 
There  were  three  instruments.   It  was  loud,  and  there  was  a  lot  of 
stomping.   The  pictures  that  were  hanging  in  the  little  gallery  were 
all  cockeyed  by  the  end  of  the  party.   I  remember  that  someone 
said  to  Yun  ,  "Doesn't  it  bother  you  what  this  has  done  to  your 
pictures?" 

He  said,  "Oh,  no,  it  just  gives  them  movement!"   [laughter] 
That  it  did. 

DuCasse:   Well,  you  were  his  good  friends;  how  could  he  care? 

Oldfield:   Later,  he  went  to  Paris.   He  went,  I  think,  the  next  year.   I 

think  it  was  '27.   I  have  recently  gotten  to  know  his  widow,  who 
is  also  named  Helen,  and  who  came  out  here  for  his  show  at  the 
Oakland  Museum.  We  got  together,  and  she  has  visited  me  several 
times.   She  told  me,  I  think,  that  it  was  '27  when  he  went  to 
Paris.   I  remember  the  day  he  left,  seeing  him  walk  down  the  street 
with  Otis.   He  had  fitted  himself  out  to  be  a  Chinese  carbon  copy: 
he'd  gotten  the  beret;  he  had  a  suit  made  that  was  as  close  as 
it  could  be,  identical  to  the  one  that  Otis  wore  most  of  the  time; 
he'd  gotten  a  cane  and  a  pipe — everything  in  imitation  of  Otis. 
It  was  very  funny — I  walked  behind  them  on  Montgomery  Street  on 
Telegraph  Hill  the  day  he  left.   It  was  so  funny  to  see  this. 
The  beret  stuck  up  on  top  of  that  wiry  Chinese  hair;  it  wouldn't 


33 


Oldfield:   fit  down  on  his  head  at  all.   The  one  that  he  had  bought  had  not 

had  that  little  thread  that  comes  out  of  the  top,  so  he  got  a  piece 
of  yarn  and  sewed  it  on.   He  had  to  have  everything  exact.   And 
he  wore  it  the  way  Otis  did.   Otis  wore  his  beret  differently  than 
has  been  popular  since:   he  pulled  it  down  over  his  brow  to  his 
eyes.   Sometimes  he  would  pull  it  up  and  back  and  make  a  little  visor 
out  of  it  when  he  was  painting. 

DuCasse:   You  mentioned  his  clothing  that  his  protege  copied.   What  kind  of 
a  suit  did  he  use? 

Oldfield:   It  was  a  very  simple  suit,  and  it  was  made  of  a  fabric  which  was 
sort  of  what  you  would  call  pepper-and-salt,  only  that  it  was 
mostly  pepper — it  was  dark.   It  was,  in  effect,  a  very  dark,  dark 
grey,  flecked  with  a  little  bit  of  lighter  color  of  some  kind. 
But  it  was  a  dark  suit.   It  looked  like  a  dark  suit. 

Cravath:   I  remember  the  overcoat  Otis  wore. 

Oldfield:   The  one  he  brought  back  from  France. 

Cravath:   It  was  big  and  heavy,  and  it  came  back  from  France,  and  it  had 
the  velvet  collar — you  remember  this? — it  was  long,  and  sort  of 
fitted. 

Oldfield:   Double-breasted. 

DuCasse:   It  looked  so  smart,  I'm  sure. 

Cravath:   I  remember  him  in  that. 

Oldfield:   He  had  very  different  hats,  too.   They  had  been  made  for  him  in 
France.   They  were  formal-looking.   They  weren't  derbies — 

Cravath:   This  coat  was  formal -looking — 


34 


Oldfield:  And  they  went  with  it.   And  he  always  wore  spats — do  you  remember 
that  too? — and  carried  a  cane. 

DuCasse:   He  must  have  been  quite  well  turned  out. 

Oldfield:   This  was  the  way  he  was  turned  out  when  I  first  knew  him.   But 

he  changed  from  that,  and  turned  to  khaki  army  pants,  and  fatigues, 
and  he  always  wore  gloves  at  first.   He  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
in  America  that  everything  was  crude  and  unfeeling,  and  he  didn't 
feel  that  he  was  going  to  waste  himself  on  these  people.   One  of 
the  things  that  did  this  to  him  was  a  story  that  he  used  to  like  to 
tell  about  when  he  first  returned  from  France.   He  lived  with  his 
parents  for  a  short  time  in  Sacramento.   He  used  to  like  to  go  to 
movies.   One  night  he  was  walking  home  from  a  movie,  and  a  couple 
of  policemen  stopped  him  and  said,  "Who  are  you  and  where  are  you 
going?" 

He  said,  "I'm  just  a  peaceful  citizen  walking  home  from  a  movie?" 
Then  they  said,  "Why  don't  you  dress  like  other  people?" 
It  made  him  so  mad.   He  was  wearing  his  French  clothes,  and 
carrying  his  cane,  and  his  spats,  and  the  whole  thing.   It  just 
made  him  awfully  mad. 

DuCasse:    I  don't  blame  him.   To  think  that  it  started  that  early.   Did 
he  wear  his  dark  suit  at  his  wedding? 

Oldfield:   I  think  he  did.   This  was  the  first  suit  that  he  had  made  in  this 

country.   His  French  suits  looked  so  strange  he  had  to  discard  them. 
They  were  fitted  at  the  waist;  the  jackets  were  longer  that  we're 
used  to;  and  the  placket  in  back  went  all  the  way  up  to  the  waist. 


Cupid  Steals  Her  Palette 


STUDENT  TO 


ART  REBEL 


,34  a 


HELEN  5 
REGINA  \ 
CLARK. 

Oakland  girl 
artist,  who  will 
wed  in  a  riot . 
of  color  and 
Bohemian 
atmosphere. 
•   her  fiance, 
Otii    Oldfield. 
finding  the  con 
ventional  to 
hit  distaste. 
The  artist 
,. colony  is 
planning  » 
revel. 


rf  Helen  Regina  Clark,  Oak 
land,  and  Otis  Oldfield 
to  Wed  in  Bohemian 
Ceremony  at  Studio 


Cupid  took  the  »tand  a*  model 
In  the  life  class  of  Otis  Oldfield, 
36,  artistic  '  revolutionary,  and 
Helen  Regina  Clark,'  24.  Eastbay 
artist,  and  former  student  of  Old- 
field.  The  artists  will  be  married 
In  the  court  studio  of  a  fellow 
artist,  Ralph  Stackpole.  716  Mont 
gomery  street,  San  Francisco. 

Oldfield,  who  lives  at  628  Mont 
gomery  street,  San  Francisco,  and 
whose  brush  has  reflected  his  de 
fiance  of  the  conventional  and  has 
caused  considerable  comment,  will 
not  be  married  In  the  conventional 
style. 

The  arrangement  were  left  large 
ly  to  Stackpole,  and  the  ceremony 
will  take  place  In  the  court  dec 
orated  with  wild  cherry  and  white 
roses,  with  candle  lanterns  and  .a 
large  bonfire  In  the  center  fur 
nishing  the  light.  A  Bohemian  at 
mosphere  will  predominate  in  all 
but  the  actual  ceremony,  which  is 
to  be  performed  by  Rev.  Henry 
Ohlaff  of  Palo  Alto. 

About  seventy-five  guests,  nearly 
all  from  the  artist  colony,  will  see 
the  bride  given  away  by  her  father, 
James  E.  Clark,  of  318  Hemphill 
place.  Oakland.  She  will  be  at 
tended  by  Miss  Lucille  Duff  of 
San  Luis  Oblcpo. 

Brush,  pencil  and  chisel  wleld- 
ers  will  revel  In  Bohemian  style 
and  rejoice  with  the  bride  and 
bridegroom. 

Following  the  ceremony,  the  wed 
ding  party  will  dance  at  the  Mod- 
ery  Gallery  which  Is  the  building 
adjoining  the  court  studio,  and 
will  be  -arranged  with  a  distinctly 
Bohemian  atmosphere.  / 


35 


Oldfield:   So  it  was  like  a  bodice  with  a  little  skirt  on  it.   They  looked 
very  strange  here.   So  he  had  to  discard  them.   He  may  have 
been  wearing  one  of  those  when  we  were  married.   I  don't  really 
remember  what  he  was  wearing.   I'm  lucky  to  remember  what  I  was 
wearing!   How  could  I  forget? 

DuCasse:   That  was  unusual. 

Oldfield:   One  of  the  society  reporters  called  me  and  asked  for  details 
about  the  wedding  before  it  happened.   And  when  I  told  her  I 
was  going  to  wear  black,  she  hung  up  on  me.   She  thought  I  was 
pulling  her  leg.   She  did  it  again  when  our  oldest  daughter  was 
married . 

Cravath:   The  same  woman? 

Oldfield:   No.   I  don't  think  it  was  the  same  woman.   But  it  happened  again, 
this  was  twenty  years  later.   It  happened  that  when  Rhoda  and 
her  first  husband  were  getting  ready  to  be  married,  they  wanted 
Henry  Ohlhoff  to  perform  the  ceremony  again,  for  sentimental 
reasons.   So  I  called  him  and  asked  him  if  he  would  do  it,  and 
he  said,  "Sure,  sure.   Where  are  going  to  have  it?" 

I  said,  "We're  planning  it  here  at  home,  a  small  ceremony  with 
just  a  few  people." 

He  said,  "Why  don't  we  have  it  down  here?"  At  this  time,  he 
was  at  the  Canon  Kip  Mission.   He  said,  "This  chapel  is  very  small 
here,  and  there  are  no  chairs,  but  it's  dominated  by  Ray  Boynton's 
mural."  He  said,  "I  would  love  to  have  it  here,  and  I'm  sure 
that  it  would  be  all  right  with  everybody  in  your  family." 


36 


Oldfield:     So  I  talked  to  the  kids,  and  they  said,  "Sure,  that's  fine." 

They  didn't  care  where  it  was.   So  we  had  it  at  the  little  chapel 
in  Canon  Kip  Mission.   There  were  very  few  people  invited.   There 
was  really  hardly  room  for  the  whole  family.   Actually,  I  think  the 
only  people  who  were  invited  besides  the  two  families  were 
Rhoda's  godparents. 

Anyway — there  we  go  again — at  that  time,  Pierre  Salinger  was 
on  the  society  page  of  the  Chronicle.   I  think  he  was  the  head  of 
it — I'm  not  sure.   Rhoda  had  a  part  time  job  working  there.   She 
was  going  to  college,  but  she  had  a  part  time  job  at  the  Chronicle 
which  she  had  gotten  through  Pierre.   So  they  published  an  account 
of  the  engagement.   Pierre,  and  Eddie  Haug,whom  she  was  marrying, 
were  very  close  friends.   So  they  published  a  little  account  of 
it,  and  it  got  into  the  society  editor's  hands  that  way.   I 
received  a  call,  and  was  questioned  about  the  details  of  the 
wedding.   And  when  I  told  the  woman  that  it  was  going  to  be  at 
the  Canon  Kip  Mission,  she  hung  up.   [laughter]   Thought  I  was 
pulling  her  leg. 

DuCasse:    Isn't  that  the  strangest  thing! 

Oldfield:   It's  rather  interesting  that  it  happened  both  times.   It  didn't 
surprise  me  much  the  second  time.   I  was  puzzled  the  first  time, 
because  I  didn't  know  why,  except  that  I  did  know,  of  course,  that 
black  was  an  unusual  color  to  be  married  in.   But  why  should  she 
think  that  I  was  pulling  her  leg.   Anyway,  it  was  obvious  that  I 
was  not.   So  there  was  no  coverage  of  that  second  wedding.   But 


37 


Oldfield:   there  was  plenty  of  coverage  of  the  first  one,  but  it  wasn't  much 
in  the  society  page,  they  were  news. 

Cravath:    I  think  I  still  have  the  clipping;  I'm  not  sure. 

Oldfield:   Well,  I've  got  a  whole  scrapbook  of  them. 

DuCasse:    Someday  I'd  love  to  look  at  your  scrapbook  when  we  have  more  time. 

Oldfield:   But  you  can't  do  that  and  do  this,  too. 

DuCasse:   Well,  we'll  do  that  another  time.   After  your  wedding,  then,  you 
lived  in  San  Francisco,  did  you  continue  working? 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes.   I  have  always  continued  working.   Not  very  much  some 
of  the  time,  because  I  promptly  had  two  children.   I  remember 
trying  to  work  while  they  were  napping.   They  would  wake  up,  and 
I  would  be  cross  with  them.   My  conscience  bothered  me;  I  thought 
it  isn't  fair  to  them.   So  I  gave  up  trying  to  work  when  they 
were  sleeping.   And  there  wasn't  very  much  other  time.   Then  I 
started  going  with  Otis  to  the  art  school  went  he  went  to  his 
classes.   I  was  free  to  go  anywhere,  although  he  didn't  feel  that 
I  should  I  go  anywhere.   He  wanted  me  to  work  in  his  classroom 
and  I  usually  did,  but  not  always.   I  was  free  to  go  into  other 
classes  if  I  wanted  to.   But  I  painted  a  lot  there.   However, 
until  very  near  the  end  of  his  life,  he  consciously  tried  to 
influence  me  to  work  with  oil  paints,  and  not  to  draw.   I  eventually 
came  to  the  realization  that  what  I  wanted  to  do  was  to  draw, 
and  that  this  was  really  my  medium  more  than  oil  paints  because 
I'm  a  linear  person.   I  like  to  draw  with  charcoal,  which  isn't 
really  linear,  but  I  am  a  linear  person.   And  he  wasn't,  and  he 
was  prejudiced  against  the  kind  of  work  that  I  naturally  wanted  to  do, 


38 


Oldfield:   Eventually,  I  understood  that  I  should  do  what  I  wanted  to  do. 
I  started  drawing,  and  I  would  be  drawing  in  here  while  he  was 
working  in  his  studio.   He  would  come  in,  look  at  what  I  was 
doing,  "I  wish  I  could  do  that."  And  that  was  amazing. 

DuCasse:    That  was  a  great  compliment. 

Oldfield:   It  was  amazing,  because  he  was  a  fine  draftsman,  as  Ruth  will  tell 
you.   His  collection  of  drawings  are  really  impressive.  He  could 
draw.   But  he  believed  in  seeing  in  terms  of  mass.   He  was  contemptuous 
of  what  I  tried  to  do,  at  least  for  a  long  time  he  was.   He  was  not 
only  contemptuous,  he  tried  to  prevent  me  from  doing  it.   He  in 
sisted  that  I  paint.   Of  course,  this  was  his  medium,  and  he  con 
tinued  in  it  for  all  of  his  life.   It  was  his  first  love.   But  he 
was  very  skillful  at  drawing. 

DuCasse:    Oh,  yes.   But  there's  no  doubt  about  it:   there's  a  great  difference 
between  the  point  of  view  of  the  painter — the  painter-ly  painter,  who 
sees  things  in  mass — 

Oldfield:      Mass  and   color. 

DuCasse:        And   the  linear  artist,   who   sees    the  beautiful  clear  outlines,    and 

who  perhaps  doesn't  always   feel  a  need   to  fill   them  in.      Or   if 

fla"fc 
they're  filled   in,    they're — that's   probably  why  you  did  so  well  with 

water  color.   That's  very  close  to  the  linear  concept,  the  clarity, 
wouldn't  you  say? 

Oldfield:   I  would  say  that  the  water  color  that  I  did — this  woman  that  taught 
me  at  Arts  and  Crafts  was  what  they  called  at  that  time  an  English 
water  color.   It  was  ar«as  of  color.   You  have  to  work  in  the  wet 


39 


Oldfield:   paint,  you  know.   I  never  even  did  any  defining  with  line  in  the 

things  I  did  in  her  class.   I  think  I've  got  a  couple  of  them  tucked 

away  somewhere  in  a  portfolio,  but  it  would  take  too  long  to  find 

them. 

I   think  that   it   took  me  a  long,   long   time   to  realize  that  I 

see   in  line.      I  didn't  know  it;    and  I  don't  know  whether  Marty 

had  an  influence  on  me,  because  I  certainly  began  with  lines  under 

his  influence. 
Cravath:   There's  a  couple  of  your  drawings  hanging  in  the  guest  room,  so 

she  could  see  some  of  your  line  drawings. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  there's  that  one  of  the  hippo  that's  right  at  the  foot  of 

your  bed.   It  isn't  hanging  there.   I  have  some  better  ones  in  the 

studio,  I  think,  and  of  course,  over  there  in  the  kitchen. 

Everything  is  in  the  kitchen  of  mine. 
DuCasse:    I  can  see  from  here  the  really— 
Oldfield:   Of  course,  that's  Otis,  that  painting.   But  this  one  is  mine. 

He  not  only  saw  in  mass  and  color,  but  also  volume  was  very 

important  to  him. 
DuCasse:   You  can  see  that  in  his  work  very  definitely.   He  has  a  sense  of 

volume — very,  very  much.  so. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  you  can  see  it  in  his  paintings. 
DuCasse:    It's  interesting  the  contrast  between  you  both.   I  think  probably 

that  was  that  marvelous  harmony  that  must  have  set  up  between  you, 

because  you  were  so  different  in  a  sense. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  harmony  and  disharmony.   But  they  go  together.   But  the  thing 


40 


Oldfield:   that  he  did— 

DuCasse:    I  should  have  said  complementary. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  understand.   He  did  feel  that  it  was  quite  reasonable  of  him 
to  influence  me.   And  I  was  obedient,  and  also  I  had  respect  and 
admiration  for  him,  and  I  was  easy  to  influence.   So  many  years  went 
by  when  I  worked  under  his  aegis,  and  that's  why  that  painting  was 
mistaken  for  one  of  his. 

I  had  another  little  funny  experience  in  that  context.   I  think 
it  was  the  first  summer  after  we  were  married — we  went  on  a  camping 
trip  down  into  the  Owens  Valley.   We  both  painted.  And  we  had  some 
little  paintboxes  that  were  just  big  enough  to  hold  a  palette  and  a 
small  board  that  you  could  hold  in  your  hand  or  set  on  your  lap. 
His  was  a  little  bit  larger,  and  mine  was  a  smallish  one.   When  we 
came  back,  apparently  I  left  one  of  mine  in  the  smaller  box,  and 
it  was  put  away,  and  hadn't  been  used  for  a  number  of  years.   Then 
he  wanted  to  use  it  for  something.   He  took  the  painting  out  and 
set  it  up  on  a  table  or  somewhere  in  the  house.   I  walked  into  the 
room  and  said,  "When  did  you  do  that?"  And  it  was  mine.   [laughter] 
So  you  see  it  was  a  very,  very  strong  influence. 

Cravath:   You  can  see  it  there. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  definitely  in  that  line  painting,  you  certainly  can. 

Oldfield:   If  I  would  show  you  some  of  his  landscapes  of  that  country,  it 
looks  very  much — 

DuCasse:   Well,  it's  very  like  the  one  that  you  have,  Ruth. 

Oldfield:   The  person  who  looked  at  it,  who  was  an  admirer  of  his  from  way 


41 


Oldfield:   back,  came  over  because  she  wanted  to  buy  one  of  his  paintings. 
I  tried  to  show  her  some,  and  for  some  reason  she  didn't  see  one 
that  she  liked  that  she  wanted  to  buy.   But  she  looked  at  that 
and  said,  "I'll  give  you  $300  for  that  one.   Too  bad  he  didn't 
sign  it." 

Cravath:   Too  bad  you  didn't  take  the  three  hundred. 

Oldfield:   I've  been  very  sorry  since  that  I  didn't  say,  "Sold." 

DuCasse:   Of  course!   She  never  would  have  known  the  difference. 

Oldfield:.  But  then  she  said,  "Too  bad  he  didn't  sign  it."  She  would  have 
wanted  the  signature — what  would  I  do?  Forge  his  name,  or  sign 
mine?   She  wouldn't  have  wanted  it  if  I'd  signed  mine,  and  I  don't 
like  to  forge  his  name. 

DuCasse:    I  don't  blame  you. 

Oldfield:   So  it  probably  wouldn't  have  been  a  sale  anyway,  although  at  the 
time  I  could  have  used  the  $300. 

DuCasse:    I'm  sure  you  could.   Couldn't  we  all. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  well,  $300  isn't  very  much  these  days,  but  it's  something. 
And  at  that  time,  it  was  quite  a  bit  more  than  it  is  now. 

DuCasse:   Did  either  of  your  children  have  talent? 

Oldfield:   The  youngest  one  is  now  in  her  middle  age,  starting  to  be  very 

interested  inprin"tmaking .   That  little  thing  over  there  is  hers. 
She  didn't  do  it  before  because  she  grew  up  equating  art  with 
poverty,  and  she  rejected  it  totally.   She  didn't  want  anything  to 
do  with  it.   Although  she  had  encouragement  from  both  of  us  all 
the  way  through. 

DuCasse:   A  little  bit  of  her  grandfather  was  coming  out. 


42 


Oldfield:   Maybe.   [laughs]   The  other  one  married  a  musician.   She  has 

directed  her  adult  interest  into  music.   She  was  librarian  for 
the  Berkeley  little  symphony  at  one  time.   Did  you  ever  encounter 
that  group? 

DuCasse:   No,  unfortunately  I  didn't.   But  I've  heard  of  them. 

Oldfield:   Her  husband  was  active  in  that  group,  and  he  is  now  married  to  the 
ex -wife  of  the  then  conductor. 

Cravath:   Did  you  follow  that  one? 

Oldfield:   It's  complicated,  it's  very  complicated. 

DuCasse:   But  that's  modern.   That's  the  way  things  work  now. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  well,  my  oldest  daughter  is  married  for  the  third  time. 

And  my  youngest  daughter  has  married  the  same  man  three  times. 
I  don't  know  which  is  the  cukoo-est. 

DuCasse:   All  I  can  say  is  they're  in  style.   [laughter] 

Oldfield:   Yes,  they're  in  style,  I  guess. 

Cravath:   Anyway,  the  eldest  daughter,  I  think,  landed  on  her  feet  with 
this  last  marriage.   I  like  him  very  much. 

Oldfield:   But  she  is  out  of  the  arts  now  totally,  except  for  her — 

DuCasse:   This  was  the  musician? 

Oldfield:   The  musician  was  her  first  husband.   Her  third  husband  flies  for 
American  Airlines.   They  live  in  Chicago.   Her  second  husband  was 
a  tennis  pro.  And  she  still  wins  tennis  tournaments  for  grand 
mothers.   She  has  a  whole  shelf  full  of  trophies. 

DuCasse:   How  was  Otis  with  his  children? 

Oldfield:   Totally  indifferent  when  they  were  little,  but  very  proud  when 


43 


Oldfield:   they  became  adults.   He  looked  at  them  one  day,  and  said  to  me, 
"Where  did  these  marriageable  young  women  come  from?" 

DuCasse:    Isn't  that  wonderful?  They  just  suddenly  appeared! 

Oldfield:   They  suddenly  appeared,  and  he  was  very  proud  of  them  at  that  time, 
and  liked  to  show  them  off.   But  he  was  indifferent  when  they 
were  babies . 

DuCasse:    It's  interesting,  the  different  ways  that  human  beings  react 

to  children.  My  father  was  the  opposite.   He  was  marvelous  with 
me  when  I  was  a  small  child.   He  was  patient,  he  would  take  me  on 
walks,  and  tell  me  stories,  and  make  up  all  kinds  of  wonderful 
things  for  me.   When  I  became  a  teenager,  we  were  good  friends, 
but  we  were  always  sort  of  at  loggerheads  with  each  other.   I  had 
ideas  of  my  own,  and  he  didn't  always  approve  of  them.  We  had 
quite  a  few  tiffs.   But  when  I  was  a  little  child,  it  was  just 
marvelous. 

Oldfield:   He  came  from  another  culture.   But  it's  also  a  personal  difference 
too.   Of  course,  Otis  was  teased  endlessly,  because  when  he  first 
came  back  from  Paris,  he  saw  Maynard  Dixon  with  two  little  boys, 
and  he  saw  the  Mackys  with  two  little  boys.   He  said  contemptuously, 
"In  Paris,  the  artists  don't  have  children." 

Cravath:    I  remember  what  Otis  said  in  that  context,  too,  that  Henry  Ohlhoff 
or  someone  told  him  that  artists  always  had  girls.   Otis  had 
two  girls.   So  that  was  just  fine. 

Oldfield:          Moya  had  two  girls,  so  that  justified  him  in  looking 
down  on  the  artists  that  had  boys.   [laughter] 

Cravath:   And  Marty  had  a  girl. 


44 


DuCasse:   And  I  have  two  girls.   But  I  have  two  grandsons,  finally. 

Oldfield:   I  have  three  granddaughters,  and  two  great-granddaughters,  and 
another  great-grandchild  on  the  way  which  may  be  a  boy.   That 
will  break  the  string,  because  it's  been  nothing  but  girls  for 
three  generations,  although  I  had  two  brothers  and  Otis  had  a 
brother.   But  it  began  with  me. 

DuCasse:    Oh,  you're  going  to  get  that  great-grandson. 

Oldfield:  My  daughters  both  had  girls:   one  had  two  and  one  had  one. 

Cravath:    I  began  to  think  I'd  never  have  a  granddaughter.   I  think  that 
Beth  would  still  be  trying  to  have  one  if  Cindy  hadn't  been  a 
girl.   I  have  three  grandsons — is  it  three  or  four? 

Oldfield:   Three. 

Cravath:   Wait  a  minute — Teddy,  Robby,  Jim,  and  Stewart. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  I  forgot  Stewart.   Do  we  need  to  put  anything  else  on  the  tape? 

DuCasse:    I  think  we  still  have  some  left. 

Oldfield:   Well,  we  might  as  well  continue  talking.   Is  there  anything  else 
you  can  ask  me? 

DuCasse:   What  I'd  like  to  have  you  think  about  for  the  next  time:   now 
that  we've  gone  through  your  life  and  into  your  life  with  Otis, 
I  think  it  would  be  great  if  we  could  get  some  of  the  details 
about  Otis's  background.   We  won't  start  that  today.   But 
just  kind  of  think  about  it:   his  childhood,  and  what  you  remember 
of  it,  and  his  training,  his  Paris  years,  and  also  we  would  be 
interested  in  the  books  that  he  illustrated — things  of  that  kind. 

Cravath:   His  bookbinding. 


45 


DuCasse:   Yes,  and  the  bookbinding  and  so  forth.  And  as  we  draw  the  details 
out  in  the  chronology,  you  can  be  thinking  about  these. 

Oldfield:   Of  course,  he  was  thirty-six  when  I  married  him.   He'd  had  a  wife 
before,  you  see.   All  I  know  about  that  is  what  I  learned  from  him. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  of  course.   But  that's  what  we're  interested.   He  fortunately 
was  never 

[end  tape  2,  side  A;  begin  tape  2,  side  B] 
[Date  of  interview:   21  January  1981] 


DuCasse:    I  realized  I  had  not  gotten  from  you — when  I  listened  to  them — 
you  mentioned  your  attendant  in  your  wedding,  but  we  didn't  find 
out  who  the  attendant  was.   Could  you  give  us  the  name  of  your 
attendant? 

Oldfield:   Her  name  was  Lucille  Duff.   She  had  been  my  closest  friend  in  my 
art  school  days.   Well,  we'd  been  students  together  all  the  way 
through.   What  else  would  you  want  to  know  about  her?   She  was  a 
very  beautiful  young  girl.   Her  home  was  San  Luis  Obispo  to  go  to 
art  school.   She  had  an  aunt  living  here,  and  she  and  her  sister 
lived  with  that  aunt.   It  was  way  out  here  in  the  Mission,  and 
I  used  to  visit  their  house  very  often,  and  occasionally  was  very 
late  going  home  at  night.   I  would  get  a  very  severe  scolding, 
because  she  didn't  approve  of  young  girls  going  around  late  at 
night  alone.   I  had  to  cross  the  bay,  because  my  family  lived  in 


46 


Oldfield:   Oakland. 

Anyway,  she  was  my  only  attendant. 

DuCasse:   That's  lovely.   I'm  glad  to  get  her  name.   Then  I  don't  remember 
if  you  mentioned  who  stood  up  with  Otis. 

Oldfield:   Ralph  Stackpole.   It  was  in  his  stoneyard  where  the  ceremony  took 
place.   Did  we  get  the  story  of  the  wedding  finished? 

DuCasse:   Yes,  we  got  the  story  of  the  wedding  finished.   One  other  thing 

I  realized  afterwards:   when  I  asked  you  about  after  your  marriage 
when  the  children  arrived,  I  said  did  you  still  keep  on  working. 
I  think  what  you  were  thinking  of  was  your  painting,  and  you  said 
of  course  you  did.  What  I  meant  was  did  you  keep  up  your  commercial 
artwork. 

Oldfield:   No. 

DuCasse:    I  just  wanted  to  clarify  that  one  item. 

Oldfield:   No,  that  was  the  end  of  that. 

DuCasse:   Okay,  now  we  can  go  back  to  where  we  left  off.   You  had  talked  about 
yourself  and  Otis,  your  life  together,  the  two  children,  and  we  spoke 
a  little  bit  about  Otis's  attitude  toward  the  children.   So  we 
brought  your  life  together  to  a  point  where  I  think  we  could  then 
ask  you  what  you  knew  of  Otis's  beginnings.  What  you  were  told  by 
him  of  where  he  was  born,  his  family,  and  so  forth. 

Oldfield:   Of  course,  I  knew  his  parents  rather  briefly.   His  father  died 
I  think  during  the  second  year  of  our  marriage,  and  his  mother 
survived  a  few  years  after  that.   She  was  absolutely  devastated 
by  the  loss  of  her  husband.   She  was  a  very  tiny,  fragile  little 


47 


Oldfield:   person,  and  really  not  equal  to  taking  care  of  herself.   So  she 
wasted  away.   It  was  a  few  years,  and  then  she  died. 

He  was  born  in  Sacramento,  July  third,  1890.   His  mother  was  of 
a  Southern  family.   She  was  born  in  Mobile,  Alabama. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  what  her  maiden  name  was,  by  any  chance? 

Oldfield:  Yes,  it  was  Lydia  Birge.   Her  family  had  come  to  California  because 
it  had  been  impoverished  with  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  and 
brought  bits  of  the  South  along.   For  instance,  there  was  a  caged 
mockingbird  on  the  mantle  of  her  sister's  home,  which  I  also  visited. 
And  a  twig  of  cotton  with  two  cotton  balls  along  side  of  the 
mockingbird  cage.   I  never  got  to  know  very  many  of  the  other 
members  of  the  family,  but  Otis  told  me  a  good  deal  about  them. 

His  paternal  grandmother  and  grandfather  had  been  British  born, 
and  become  Mormon  converts  in  England.   According  to  the  story 
Otis  told  me,  Grandpa  Oldfield  was  a  bit  of  a  scoundrel.   He  fell 
in  love  with  this  young  Jewish  girl,  whose  parents  ran  a  silk  mill 
in  LincoltShire.    .  Apparently,  she  liked  him  too;  he  must  have 
been  a  charmer.   But  her  parents  were  very  much  opposed  to  the 
marriage,  so  he  published  the  bans  in  a  neighboring  town. 
Sounds  like  Shakespeare,  doesn't  it? 

DuCasse:    It  does  indeed! 

Oldfield:   The  marriage  took  place  without  the  knowledge  of  her  parents 
until  after  it  was  accomplished  fact.   Otis's  father,  who  was 
the  first  baby,  was  born  in  England.   I  guess  things  got  a  bit 
uncomfortable  there  for  the  young  couple,  because  they  didn't 


48 


Oldfield:   stay  in  England  very  long.   They  brought  the  baby  to  this  country. 

After  that,  Otis'  grandfather,  who  was  apparently  a  pretty  successful 
operator  of  some  kind,  because  he  was  a  Mormon  convert,  had  the 
backing  of  the  church,  bringing  Mormons  to  Utah  to  settle  in  the 
promised  land.   He  drove  wagon  trains  back  and  forth  between 
Nabu  and  Utah.   He  settled  his  young  wife  in  a  corner  of  the 
wilderness  there,  and  two  more  children  were  born.   I  myself 
heard  Otis'  father  say  that  the  first  language  he  spoke  was  that 
of  the  Blackfoot  Indians.   He  grew  up  with  the  little  Indian  children. 

A  few  years  went  by  until  the  children  were — well,  the  oldest, 
who  was  Otis'  father,  was  about  ten,  I  think.   Then  Grandpa 
Oldfield  announced  that  he  was  prosperous  enough;  he  was  sending 
back  to  England  for  a  second  wife.   The  girl  he  chose  had  been  his 
wife's  best  friend  when  they  were  in  England,  so  she  objected. 

Cravath:   The  wife  objected. 

Oldfield:   The  wife  objected,  yes.   This  was  in  the  day  of  the  Avenging  Angels, 
you  know.   She  couldn't  leave.   The  church  okayed  it;  it  was  her 
duty  as  a  good  Mormon  to  just  journey  heavenward  by  being  agreeable 
to  this  arrangement.   But  she  couldn't  take  it.   So  she  made  an 
arrangement  with  somebody  who  was  driving  a  wagon  train  across 
the  desert — to  Ogden  or  somewhere — to  meet  her  out  of  the 
settlement  somewhere  on  part  of  his  route,  I  guess.   Anyway,  she 
had  one  baby  in  her  arms,  one  a  toddler,  and  a  little  boy  eight 
or  nine  or  ten  years  old.   Three  children.   According  to  the  story 
I  have  been  told,  they  pretended  that  they  were  playing  a  game. 


49 


Oldfield:   The  little  boy  was  throwing  rocks,  and  then  they  would  go  and  pick 

them  up.   But  instead  of  coming  back  they  kept  on  going  to  the  point 
of  rendevouz.   The  wagon  driver  picked  them  up  and  took  her  to  the 
nearest  railroad,  which  I  believe  was  Ogden  at  that  time.   Anyway, 
she  didn't  have  a  cent;  she  put  herself  at  the  mercy  of  the  conductor 
on  the  train — she  was  a  very  beautiful  young  woman,  I  know  from 
the  pictures  I've  seen  of  her,  and  also  I  knew  her  when  she  was  in 
her  eighties.  A  very  beautiful  old  woman  she  was,  and  I  thought 
very  superficial:   she  was  loaded  with  junk  jewelry.   But  she  was 
elegant — she  was  erect  and  white-haired,  with  pink  and  white  skin — 
she  was  still  beautiful  at  eighty-some. 

Anyway,  the  conductor  on  the  train  let  her  ride  with  her  children 
as  far  as  Sacramento.  And  that's  how  the  family  became  a  Sacramento 
family.  Otis'  father  grew  up  there. 

DuCasse:   Which  was  Otis'  father?  Was  he  the  eight-year-old? 

Oldfield:   He  was  the  eight-year-old,  yes,  he  was  the  oldest  one.   According 
to  the  story  that  Otis  told  me,  later  on,  after  the  second  wife 
had  died,  old  Grandpa  Oldfield  turned  up  like  a  bad  penny  in 
Sacramento  and  asked  his  oldest  son  to  take  care  of  him,  which  he 
did.   Otis  grew  up  knowing  this  grandfather  who  was  never  very 
much  admired  by  him,  according  to  what  he  told  me. 

Otis  went  to  school  in  Sacramento,  and  he  was  the  youngest 
of  three  children.   He  had  an  older  brother  and  an  older  sister. 
The  older  brother  went  off  to  work  on  a  cattle  ranch  in  Nevada 
one  summer.   This  inspired  Otis'  imagination.   He  wanted  to  do 


50 


Oldfield:   it  too.   He  was  a  little  young  at  the  time,  of  course,  but  eventually, 
he  got  to  the  place  where  he  was  going  to  get  out  somehow  or  other. 
He  tried  to  join  the  Navy,  and  they  wouldn't  have  him  because  he 
wasn't  tall  enough.   He  became  more  and  more  dissatisfied — all 
this,  you  understand,  is  what  he  told  me — I  wasn't  around,  of  course. 
Eventually,  he  said,  he  threw  his  books  in  the  gutter  and  took  off. 
This  was  after  the  Navy  had  refused  him,  and  quite  a  few  years 
had  gone  by,  of  course.   I  don't  know  how  old  he  was,  but  he 
arrived  in  Paris  when  he  was  nineteen.   And  this  had  to  be  several 
years  before,  because  he'd  done  a  lot  of  other  things  in  the  meantime. 

DuCasse:   That  would  have  been  nineteen — 

Oldfield:   Ninteen-nine  when  he  went  to  Paris.   Before  that,  he  had  worked  on 
this  cattle  ranch  for  a  while,  where  he  got  diphtheria •  and  passed 
it  around  to  all  the  people,  all  of  the  men  in  the  bunkhouse,  and 
was  very  unpopular  on  that  account.   Then  he  got  a  job — I  don't  know 
he  got  to  Montana,  except  that  it's  close  enough,  I  guess.   I  don't 
remember  any  stories  of  how  he  got  there.   But  eventually,  he  was 
a  fry  cook  on  the — what  is  it — Missoula,  Coeur  de  Lane — 

Cravath:   Missoula  is  in  Montana;  Coeur  de  Lane  is  in  Idaho. 

Oldfield:  Well,  there  was  a  railroad  that  ran  between  the  two  places,  and 
he  was  a  fry  cook  on  that  railroad. 

Cravath:   Northern  Pacific. 

Oldfield:   I  guess  it  was  Northern  Pacific.   By  this  time  he  knew  that  he 
wanted  to  study  art.   He  was  scribbling.   He'd  made  up  his  mind. 
Also,  his  imagination  was  probably  fired  by  someone  he  met  on 
that  railroad  run  who  talked  to  him  about  an  art  school  in  Portland. 


51 


Oldfield:   So  he  saved  his  money  and  he  got  to  Portland.   When  he  got  to  Portland, 
the  art  school  didn't  amount  to  anything.   They  told  him  he  had  to 
get  to  San  Francisco.   So  again  he  saved  his  money,  and  he  came  down 
the  coast  on  one  of  those  little  coastwise  lumber  schooners  and  got 
to  San  Francisco,  where,  of  course,  he  didn't  have  any  money;  he 
had  to  get  a  job. 

By  this  time  he  had  learned  to  take  advantage  of  his  short 
stature,  and  he  got  a  job  as  a  bellboy  in  the  old  Argonaut  Hotel. 
It  was  around  Fifth  and  Market  or  Fifth  and  Mission  or  somewhere 

there.   There  was  a  resident  physician  there  whom  I  later  met 

(Charles  Grant) 
years  later,  and  there  was  a  very  well  known  painter,  a  painter 

of  ships,  well-known  at  this  time,  whom  he  met  there.   The  painter 
encouraged  him  in  his  ambitions  to  study  art,  and  the  physician 
took  care  of  him  when  he  fell  down  the  stairs  with  a  heavy  tray 
once  and  had  to  be  hospitalized.   I  can't  tell  you  exactly  how  long 
this  bellboy  job  lasted,  but  eventually  he  was  hatcheck  boy  at  the 
old  Cliff  House.   He  was  there  one  New  Year's  Eve  when  all  the 
Spreckels  family,  and  what  was  her  name — the  queen  from  the  Hawaiian 
islands — 

DuCasse:   Hakelami? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  something  like  that.   [laughter]   Anyway,  there  was  entertainment, 
and  a  lot  of  booze,  and  the  people  at  the  tables  were  throwing 
five-dollar  gold  pieces  to  the  entertainers.  After  the  evening  was 
over,  Otis,  who  was  very  young,  hadn't  indulged  in  the  champagne  he 
could  get,  and  the  waiters  were  nearly  all  drunk,  so  that  at  the  end 


52 


Oldfield:   evening,  Otis  searched  among  the  serpentine  and  confetti  on  the  floor, 
and  raked  up  five  hundred  dollars  in  gold  coins. 

So  he  took  that  home  to  Sacramento,  and  his  father,  who  by  this 
time  was  a  master  coach  painter  in  the  shops  of  the  Southern  Pacific 
in  Sacramento,  got  him  a  pass  to  New  York.   With  his  $500,  he  bought 
a  ticket — I  think  it  was  the  Lusitannia — I  have  a  record  of  that — 
but  I  think  it  was  the  Lusitannia,  because  this  was  before  the  war, 
and  it  had  to  be  before  she  was  sunk,  you  know.   He  went  to  France 
on  the  Lusitannia  and  landed  there. 

Oh,  I  left  out  a  little  important  item.   While  he  was  in  San  Francisco, 
while  he  was  working  both  as  a  bellhop  and  hatcheck  boy,  he  had  gone 
to  art  school  at  night  at  the  old  Best  Academy. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  where  that  might  have  been  located? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was  Franklin  and  Bush,  I  think,  in  one  of  those  old  Victorians 
that's  still  there.   It  was  run  by  a  man  named  Arthur  Best,  and  it 
was  the  art  school  that  he  found  after  he  came  down  from  Portland. 

DuCasse:   Arthur  Best  rings  a  bell. 

Cravath:    Is  he  the  Best  that  was  the  father  of  Virginia  Adams?   She  was  a 
Best.   The  family  in  Yosemite  that  had  an  art  gallery? 

DuCasse:   That  could  be.   I'll  bet  that  was.   That's  where  the  connection  was 
coming  from. 

Oldfield:   I'm  not  sure  that  he  was  her  father — 

Cravath:   Well,  she  was  Virginia  Best. 

DuCasse:    I'm  sure  that  was  probably  the  one. 

Oldfield:   Anyway — there  I  go  again — he  went  there  to  school  while  he  was 


53 


Oldfield:   working  at  night  in  these  other  places.   Among  his  fellow  students 
was  a  young  Frenchman  who  was  going  back  to  France — I  don't  know 
when,  but  in  a  short  time — so  they  made  an  arrangement  that  he 
would  meet  Otis  and  show  him  around  when  he  got  there.   Otis  counted 
on  this,  but  when  he  eventually  arrived  there,  there  was  no  one 
to  meet  him;  he  spoke  not  a  word  of  French;  he  had  no  passport; 
and  he  was  just  stranded  in  a  foreign  country.   And  he  was  young: 
he  was  only  nineteen. 

DuCasse:   And  without  too  much  money  by  that  time,  I  would  imagine. 

Oldfield:   I  think  it  took  most  of  what  he  had.   He  told  me  many  tales  about 
how  he  lived  on  french  bread  with  a  slice  of  onion  on  it.   That 
was  all  he  had  to  eat.   He  shortly  acquired  a  typical  art  student's 
outfit:   a  cordouroy  suit  with  a  norfolk  jacket,  and  baggy  trousers 
which  fastened  around  the  ankles  to  make  them  kind  of  blousy.   I 
bet  Marty  wore  one  of  those. 

DuCasse:   He  certainly  did. 

Oldfield:   He  said  that  he  lived  and  slept  in  that  thing,  because  he  had  no 

bedding;  he  had  no  bed.   Eventually,  a  couple  of  the  other  students 
that  he  met  at  the  academy — he  must  have  had  a  little  money  to 
enroll,  because  he  enrolled  in  Academy  Julien.   He  met  other 
students  there,  of  course,  and  eventually  some  of  them  invited 
him  to  share  their  digs.   But  all  they  had  was  just  a  bare  floor. 
So  he  slept  in  that  cordouroy  outfit  on  the  bare  floor.   He  also 

had  a  cape,  and  the  cape  was  warm  and  helpful  too,  I'm  sure. 

Quatre 
He  used  to  like  to  tell  about  the  first      Art  Ball  he  attended. 


54 


Oldfield:   He  wore  the  cape  to  the  door  and  took  it  off.   That's  a  typical — 
I  don't  remember  all  of  the  art  student  stories  he  told.   He  had 
a  whole  hoard  of  them,  and  about  the  shenanigans  in  the  street 
the  next  day.   They  didn't  want  to  quit,  and  they  just  kept  on 
going.   People  kept  on  calling  the  police,  and  they  kept  on  being 
hauled  in,  and  then  they'd  get  out  and  go  to  it  again. 

And  there  was  always  someone  among  those  art  students  who  had 
influential  relatives,  you  know.  So  they  got  them  all  out,  time 
after  time.  But  instead  of  behaving,  they  went  back  to  doing  it 
again. 

Now,  let  me  see — where  do  we  go  from  here?   I've  got  him  as  far 
as  going.   He  arrived  there,  and  registered  at  the  academy,  made 
a  few  friends,  and  moved  in  with  them. 

DuCasse:   How  long  did  he  stay  there,  do  you  remember? 

Oldfield:   How  long  did  he  stay  altogether?  He  came  back  in  f24,  and  he  left 
in  1909 .   That  was  twenty  five  years . 

Cravath:   He  was  in  Paris  twenty-five  years? 

Oldfield:   No,  fifteen  years.   Of  course,  he  came  to  make  French  friends. 

In  fact,  one  of  the  French  boys  who  was  one  of  his  first  friends 
took  him  home  with  him  for  the  first  Christmas  holidays.   There 
he  felt  at  home,  was  very,  very  happy,  and  promptly  fell  in  love 
with  the  boy's  sister,  who  rejected  him  very  brutally  because  he 
was — they  called  him  a  savage,  the  American  savage. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  that's  what  they  called  my  father,  the  savage. 

Oldfield:   Savage,  yes.   He  claimed  that  his  reputation  was  enhanced  by  his 


55 


Oldfield:   claim  of  being  a  Californian.   They  didn't  think  that  Calif ornians 

were  quite  as  savage  as  the  general  run  of  Americans. 
DuCasse:    I  think  the  aura  of  the  gold  age  still  clung  to  California. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  and  California  had  been  a  Spanish  province  at  one  time.   I 

Icn  ow 
don't  why  they  called  Marty  a  savage;  he  was  not  really  that  kind 

of  an  American. 

DuCasse:   Perhaps  he  behaved  a  little  bit  like  one.   [laughter] 

Oldfield:   Maybe  he  did.   All  I  know  about  this  part  of  Otis'  life  is  what 
he  told  me.   The  story  was  that  after  he  was  rejected  by  the 
sister  of  the  friend  who  had  taken  him  home,  their  mother  was  very, 
very  concerned  about  him,  and  very  sympathetic,  and  showed  him  a 
lot  of  compassion  and  interest,  and  eventually  she  became  his 
common-law  wife.   He  lived  with  her  until  she  died,  and  then  he 
came  back  to  California. 

DuCasse:   How  did  he  support  himself  all  this  time?  Did  he  do  any  work,  or 
did  she  take  care  of  him? 

Oldfield:   She  had  a  millinery  shop,  and  she  was  quite  prosperous,  apparently. 
They  made  hats  in  those  days,  and  they  made  babies'  bonnets.   It 
was  a  good  business.   She  ran  quite  a  large  shop  and  employed  quite 
a  number  of  girls.   Also,  his  family  sent  him  a  little  money  during 
those  years.   He  said,  rather  unkindly,  I  thought,  that  it  was 
"cigarette  money."  He  felt  that  it  was  such  a  small  amount  that 
it  didn't  contribute  very  much  to  his — but  he  was  provided  with  a 
studio,  a  place  to  live,  and  food,  and  what  he  needed.   But  he 
didn't  need  very  much  money. 


56 


Oldfield:   Anyway,  during  the  war  his  brother  was  an  American  GI — did  they 
call  it  GI  in  those  World  War  I — 

DuCasse:   Probably  not,  but  I  don't  know  what  they  called  them. 

Cravath:   Federal  board  students  when  they  went  to  art  school. 

DuCasse:   Of  course,  in  the  second  world  war  they  called  them  GIs .   I  don't 
remember  what  they  called  them  after  World  War  I. 

Oldfield:   This  was  when  they  came  back.   Well,  this  was  in  Paris. 

DuCasse:    It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  the  title  for  them  was. 

Oldfield:   Doughboy  was  what  they  called  them.   So  my  brother-in-law  was  a 

doughboy.   So  he  was  in  Paris  as  an  American  soldier,  and  visited 
Otis  and  got  acquainted  with  his  way  of  life,  and  brought  the  tale 
back  to  his  parents,  which  they  found  pretty  disturbing.   Anyway, 
it  didn't  bother  him  very  much,  I  guess. 

Anyway,  he  came  back  when  she  died.   Surveying  the  field,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  he  chose  me.   I  have  no  real  knowledge  why, 
except  that  I  know  that  he  had  lived  with  a  woman  who  was  old  enough 
to  be  his  mother  for  quite  a  long  period.   I  think  he  wanted  a  young 
girl.   But  why  he  chose  me  instead  of  one  of  those  French  girls 
that  Lucien  Labaudt  was  trying  to  push  on  him,  I  don't  know. 

DuCasse:   I  think  he'd  had  enough  of  the  French.,  perhaps. 

Oldfield:  Maybe  he'd  had  enough  of  the  French. 

Cravath:   Well,  he  certainly  chose  wisely! 

DuCasse:   He  had  learned  a  great  deal,  and  he  knew  who  to  choose.   That's 
the  reason. 

Oldfield:   Well,  that's  very  nice  of  you.   Anyway,  he  did.   Didn't  I  tell  you 


57 


Oldfield:   a  little  bit  on  the  last  tape  about  his  courtship?  Pursuing  me 
with  little  French  songs,  and  all  that  stuff. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  and  the  lovely  picnics  that  you  took. 

Oldfield:   And  appearing  at  my  parent's  door  in  his  French  get-up  with  a 
bouquet  of  roses  behind  his  back,  held  behind  him,  and  all  of 
my  parent's  neighbors  peeking  out  of  the  window  to  see  what  in 
the  world  I  had  picked  up.   He  was  really  conspicuous. 

I  remember  when  we  went  to  buy  wedding  rings   [brief  tape 
interruption]  and  we  went  to  one  of  the  jewelry  stores,  and  he 
ordered  the  ring.   Then  the  clerk  who  was  taking  the  order  asked 
him  his  name  and  his  address.   He  said,  "Oh,  you  don't  need  that. 
Just  take  one  look  at  me:   you'll  never  forget  me."   [laughter] 
I  was  so  embarrassed.   He  was  so  cocky  about  it,  and  he  wouldn't 
give  him  his  name. 

Cravath:   Was  that  your  wedding  ring  or  engagement  ring? 

Oldfield:   The  wedding  ring.   We  had  to  leave  it  to  be  engraved  and  everything, 
so  the  man  needed  his  name  and  his  address  and  a  little  bit  of 
identification.   "You  don't  need  that.   Just  take  one  look  at  me." 

I  remember  another  time  I  was  embarrassed.   We  went  to  the 
First  Parillia.   Do  you  remember  it  at  all?  The  one  at  the  art 
school? 

Cravath:   Oh,  do  I  remember  that.   I  certainly  do. 

Oldfield:   I  had  made  him  an  elaborate  costume — he  embarrassed  me  so  many  times; 
I'm  just  beginning  to  remember  them.   [laughter]   I  had  sewn  raveled 
hemp  on  a  pair  of  long  underdrawers .   He  went  as  Pan.   He  had  two 


58 


Oldfield:   little  red  wooden  horns,  and  he  shaved  the  hair 


[end  tape  2,  side  B;  begin  tape  3,  side  A] 


Oldfield:   I  was  on  the  First  Parillia,  wasn't  I? 

DuCasse:   Right.   And  you  were  just  finishing  his  costume. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  made  his  costume,  and  of  course  he  got  first  prize  for  the 
costume.   I  was  pregnant;  I  really  didn't  even  want  to  go,  but  he 
insisted.   So  I  got  up  something  for  myself,  some  cover-up  type 
of  costume. 

DuCasse:   A  Roman  matron  costume. 

Oldfield:   Right,  something  like  that.   Anyway,  we  went  to  the  door,  and  there 
were  some  students  there,  of  course,  collecting  the  tickets  or  the 
admittance  fees.   Otis  refused;  he  didn't  have  a  ticket  or  tickets, 
and  he  refused  to  pay  to  get  in.   He  said,  "You're  lucky  I've  come." 
[laughter]   "You  ought  to  pay  me!" 

Cravath:   Was  this  after  he  won  the  prize? 

Oldfield:   No,  this  was  before  he  won  the  prize.   They  didn't  know  what  to  do 
with  this  little  guy,  so  they  let  him  in.   I  sort  of  crept  in  after 
him.   I  was  so  embarrassed.   I'd  never  been  with  anyone  before 
who  was  like  that.   I  was  absolutely  embarrassed.   We  got  in,  and 
right  inside  was  Edgar  Walter,  who  immediately  went  into  ecstasy 
over  Otis'  make-up  and  his  costume.   He  said,  "Take<Sme  back  to  Paris." 


59 


Oldfield:   And  he  took  him  in  charge,  and  then  they  couldn't  do  anything  about 
him.   I  guess  Edgar  was  probably  on  the  committee  that  awarded  the 
prize.   I  remember        tTreska     was  Cleopatra,  and  she  was 
sure  she'd  get  the  prize,  and  she  didn't.   They  gave  it  to  Otis. 

DuCasse:   Well,  it  was  more  original. 

Oldfield:   My  next  embarrassment  was  the  priz^e'nJSs1  a  hundred-dollar  merchandise 
order  on  the  Emporium.   So  my  next  embarrassment  came  when  we  went 
to  spend  the  money,  and  we  bought  a  double  bed.   Otis,  in  a  very 
expansive  mood,  said  to  the  clerk,  "The  first  thing  I  think  that 
married  people  should  have  is  a  bed,  don't  you?" 

The  clerk  looked  at  me;  I  was  obviously  pregnant.   He  was  thinking, 
"Well,  you  didn't  need  it,  I  guess,  anyway."   [laughter]   Anyway, 
that  was  my  second  embarrassment,  connected  with  the  Parillia. 
Now,  let's  find  our  continuity  again. 

DuCasse:   I  know  what  I  wanted  to  ask  you:   why  did  Otis  particularly  come  to 
San  Francisco.  Was  that  because  he  had  studied  there  before  he  went 
to  Paris? 

Oldfield:   No,  he  tried  to  go  back  to  Sacramento.   His  parents  were  there, 
and  he  told  me,  "I  couldn't  believe  it.   They  had  grown  old!" 
He  didn't  recognize  his  parents.   It  was  quite  a  stretch:   it 
was  fifteen  years.   But  his  parents  weren't  old  when  I  knew  them, 
not  really  old.   Anyway,  he  was  singularly  lacking  in  imagination 
in  certain  areas.   He  just  had  not  prepared  himself  for  the 
changes  that  he  would  find  there. 

Anyway,  he  tried  to  adjust  himself  to  it.   He  came  down  to 


60 


Oldfield:   San  Francisco  to  visit,  and  renewed  his  acquaintance  with  Ralph 
Stackpole  and  met  through  him  a  few  other  people. 

Cravath:   Did  he  meet  Ralph  in  Paris? 

Oldfield:   In  Paris.   Ralph  was  over  there  during  his  divorce.   Otis  said 
that  he  found  in  the  catalogue  of  one  of  the  French  exhibitions 
the  name  Adele  Stackpole,  because  he  was  looking  for  Americans. 
He  found  Adele  Stackpole,  Sacramento,  California.   So  he  looked 
her  up  and  became  acquainted  with  her.   Then  when  Ralph  came  along, 
Ralph  looked  him  up,  because  it  had  something  to  do  with — the 
sculptor  who  did  the  lion — Putnam.   Arthur  Putnam  had  been  Ralph's 
teacher. 

DuCasse:   He  went  to  Paris  in  1911,  I  think  it  was,  or  sometime  after  that. 

Oldfield:   Otis  had  gotten  in  contact  with  Arthur  Putnam  because  he  was  an 
American  and  he  was  having  problems  with  Spreckels.   Spreckels 
was  having  his  sculpture  reproduced  with  a  view  to  bestowing  it 
on  the  city  of  San  Francisco.   Putnam  was  having  problems  with  her 
about  paying  the  founder  and  stuff  like  that.   So  he  was  feeling  a 
little  bit  irate  at  the  time,  and  Otis,  because  of  his  identity 
as  a  Calif ornian,  somehow  or  other  got  mixed  up  in  it — 

Cravath:   This  all  took  place  in  Paris? 

Oldfield:   This  all  took  place  in  Paris.   So  when  Ralph  arrived  there,  he  got 
to  Otis'  name  from  Arthur  Putnam,  and  looked  him  up  and  visited 
him  in  his  studio.   Otis  told  me  that  he,  when  he  met  Ralph,  said 
"I've  just  met  another  Stackpole  from  California."  This  was  putting 
his  foot  in  his  mouth,  because  this  was  the  woman  who  was  divorcing 


61 


Oldfield:   him,  and  he'd  followed  her  to  Paris.   So  this  was  how  that  friendship 
began,  and  Otis  renewed  it  when  he  came  back  to  Sacramento  and  came 
down  to  visit  San  Francisco.   He  renewed  the  relationship  with 
Ralph  then . 

DuCasse:   Did  he  also  with  Adele? 

Oldfield:      No,    I  don't   think  so.      I  don't   think  he  ever   saw  Adele  again,    not 

that  I  knew  about.   By  this  time,  by  the  time  he  came  to  San  Francisco 
to  live,  Adele  and  Ralph  were  divorced,  and  he  was  already  with 
Jeanette.   So  it  was  old,  and  they  were  not  seeing  each  other. 
Also,  she  had  moved  to  Oakland,  and  Peter  grew  up  there. 
Anyway — there  I  go  again  with  the  anyways — 

DuCasse:   There  are  very  few  of  them  really.   [laughter] 

Odlfield:   Through  Ralph  he  met  Piazzoni,  Maynard  Dixon,  and  the  various 
other  people  who  were  conspicuous  on  the  scene  at  that  time. 

DuCasse:   And  most  of  them  who  also  had  been  in  Paris. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  practically  all  of  them.   Did  I  tell  you  the  story  about 

the  first  time  I  saw  him  at  the  art  school  when  he  made  the  speech? 

DuCasse:   Oh,  yes  indeed  you  did. 

Oldfield:  Well,  this  occurred  on  one  of  those  visits  to  San  Francisco.   Then 
he  used  to  come  and  visit  the  acquaintances  that  he  had  who  were 
night  students  at  the  art  school.   On  one  of  those  occasions  he 
told  me  about  his  upcoming  show  at  the  old  Beaux  Arts  gallery. 

Cravath:    I  remember  that  so  well. 

Oldfield:   I  don't  know  how  much  of  that  story  I  told  you,  but  that  was  my 
next  meeting  with  him  after  the  lecture. 


62 


DuCasse:   I  don't  think  you  told  too  much  about  that.   I  think  we  might  go 

into  that . 
Oldfield:   Did  I  tell  you  about  his  having  been  asked  at  the  end  of  that 

lecture:   "Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  don't  have  to  paint  with  a 

brush?" 

And  he  said,  "You  can  put  it  on  with  an  old  shoe  if  you  feel 

like  it!" 

DuCasse:   Yes,  you  did. 
Oldfield:   It  was  after  that  that  I  went  to  see  his  show  and  met  him  sitting 

in  the  foyer.   That  was  our  meeting.   Then  I  must  have  told  you 

that.   I  know  I  went  on  then  to  being  in  his  class  and — well,  let's 

skip  that.   That  overlaps. 
DuCasse:   That's  all  right,  so  we  don't  lose  anything  that  we  should  keep 

in  the  story.  Was  he  teaching  at  the  Art  Institute  after  you  were 

married? 

Cravath:   The  California  School  of  Fine  Arts? 
DuCasse:   He  was  teaching  there,  was  he  not? 
Oldfield:   Yes.   He  was  teaching  there  before  we  were  married.  What  happened 

was  that  he  conducted  this  little  private  class  I  told  you  about 

all  the  time  sort  of  being  the  bohemian-about-town,  you  know,  and 

seeing  the  other  artists  who  were  working  a  great  deal.   This 

happened  to  be  just  at  the  time  that  the  present  building  was  in 

course  of  its  construction. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  after  they  moved  from  Nob  Hill. 
Oldfield:   They  sold  the  property  at  Nob  Hill,  but  it  took  some  time  to  build 


63 


Oldfield:   the  new  building. 

Meanwhile  they  set  up  the  school  in  temporary  headquarters  down 
on  Market  Street,  Market  and  California.   The  regular  staff,  of 
whom  Otis  was  not  one  at  that  time,  didn't  want  to  conduct  the 
summer  school.   So  they  offered  Otis  the  opportunity  to  have  the 
California  School  of  Fine  Arts'  summer  session  under  his  management 
and  control,  and  to  keep  for  himself  whatever  he  could  make.   So 
he  had  a  friend  who  had  a  studio  in  the  backyard  that  he  had  built 
for  his  wife  many  years  before,  because  she  had  been  an  art 
student  when  they  married — he  was  a  medic,  and  he  just  wanted  to 
indulge  his  wife.   So  he  built  her  a  studio  in  the  back  yard  of  their 
home.   I  don't  remember  where  it  was,  although  I  was  there  once. 
It  seems  to  me  it  was  out  Jackson  Street  somewhere.   Anyway,  it 
was  a  fairly  good-sized  room,  and  Otis  conducted  the  California 
School  of  Fine  Arts  summer  session  there.   I  don't  think  he  had  to 
pay  any  rent  even,  because  it  wasn't  being  used.   They  just  lent 
it  to  him. 

Apparently  the  administration  of  the  art  school  was  pleased 
with  what  he  had  done.   So  at  the  end  of  the  summer  he  was  offered 
a  job  teaching  regular  session.   That  was  how  he  began. 

DuCasse:   Did  he  teach  painting  only? 

Oldfield:   He  taught  painting.   I  don't  think  he  ever  taught  drawing.   He 
began  with  still  life,  and  I  believe  his  first  classes  were 
night  classes.   Then  he  had  Saturday  classes. 

Cravath:   And  you  were  in  that  night  class,  weren't  you  Helen? 


64 


Oldfield:   No.   After  we  were  married,  I  used  to  go  with  him. 

Cravath:    I  thought  maybe  you  were  in  his  class. 

Oldfield:   No.   The  only  class  of  his  that  I  was  in  was  the  one  in  Carol 
Wirtenberger 's  studio.   That  was  long  over  by  the  time  we  were 
married.   Of  course,  all  the  newspapers  said  that  I  had  married 
my  teacher,  but  I  really  didn't  even  think  of  it  that  way.   This 
was  a  very  informal  little  group  gathered  in  a  fellow  student's 
studio.   I  remember  he  used  to  pass  his  beret  around,  and  we  would 
each  put  a  dollar  in  it  or  something.   He  was  very  hard  up  at  that 
time.   He  told  me,  although  I  don't  remember  it,  that  Maynard  Dixon 
used  to  give  him  jobs  working  on  mural  commissions  that  he  had. 
He  worked  for  Maynard  under  Maynard 's  direction.   He  did  that,  and 
then  he  had  this  little  class  where  he  got  a  dollar  a  head  from 
his  students,  which  didn't  provide  very  much.   But,  you  know,  a 
room  in  the  Monkey  Block  at  that  time  cost  ten  dollars. 

DuCasse:    Good  heavens!   You  didn't  have  to  have  too  much  to  subsist. 

Oldfield:      You  didn't  have   to  have   too  much.      And  also,   he  set  himself  up 
as  a  bookbinder. 

DuCasse:   Where  did  he  learn  bookbinding,  do  you  remember? 

Oldfield:   In  Paris.   This  was  on  the  advice  of  his  French  wife.   She  felt 

that  every  artist  should  have  a  craft  to  fall  back  on,  a  practical 
craft.   So  she  encouraged  him,  and  arranged  for  him  to  have  very 
good  training,  I  believe,  because  he  was  a  good  bookbinder.   But 
he  was  not  a  naturally  good  craftsman.   He  bungled  things,  and  I 
learned  all  the  French  swearwords  in  the  book  when  he  was  doing 


65 


Oldfield:-  bookbinding. 

DuCasse:   And  that's  a  very  precise  kind  of  art.   It  really  is  a  craft. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  and  it  requires  control.   This  was  something  that  he  had  no 
patience  with.   He  used  to  look  at  me  and  say,  "How  can  you  be  so 
patient?   It's  indecent." 

DuCasse:   Oh,  patience  is  a  great  virtue,  there's  no  doubt  about  it. 

Oldfield:   He  felt  that  he  didn't  have  it,  and  I  did,  and  he  taunted  me  with  it. 

DuCasse:    Incidentally,  before  we  go  too  much  further,  I  don't  think  we  ever 

got  the  name  of  his  French  wife.   Do  you  remember  what  her  name  was? 

Oldfield:   Yes.   Her  name  was  Roche.   She  was  Madame  Roche.   Her  son  was 
Marcel  Roche. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  what  her  first  name  might  have  been? 

Oldfield:      Yes:Jeheeme   He  called  her   "Jane."     That's  one  reason  for   our  daughter's 
being  named  Jane. 

DuCasse:   Well,  think  of  that!   So  he  helped  to  support  himself  with  his 

bookbinding,  even  though  he  had  some  problems  with  it!   [laughs] 

Oldfield:   He  had  problems  with  it  which  I  remember.   He  was  very,  very  proud 
of  his  skill  and  his  knowledge  of  the  craft  as  a  French  craft.   He 
was  a  French  trained  bookbinder,  which  had  a  certain  distinction  here. 
He  did  some  very  beautiful  things.   He  went  through  a  period  when  he 
was  doing  bindings  of  erotica  for  Hollywood  personalities.   This 
was  when  we  were  still  living  on  Telegraph  Hill.   They  would  send 
him  the  books ,  the  unbound  books ,  and  he  would  try  to  make  some  kind 
of  exotic  bindings  which  would  go  with  what  he  knew  was  the  content, 
although  he  never  bothered  to  read  it.   Then  he  would  mail  them  back. 
I  remember  one  of  the  men  was  Von  Stcoheim  that  he  made  bindings 


66 


Oldfield:   for. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  Erich  Von  Stroheim,  the  director  and  actor. 

Oldfield:   And  actor.   He  had  a  collection  of  erotica.   Otis  bound  them  usually 
in  velum.   But  then  he  got  the  idea  that  it  would  be  so  much  more 
exciting  to  have  some  human  skin  in  those  bindings. 

Cravath:   Oh,  that  I'll  never  forget! 

Oldfield:   So  he  had  a  student  at  the  art  school  who  was  also  a  medical 

student  at  UC  Berkeley,  and  he  got  him  some — it  was  a  paper  shopping 
bag  full  of  skin  off  of  a  cadaver. 

Cravath:    Sounds  like  Leonardo  when  he  was  doing  his  nefarious  things — 

Oldfield:   It  wasn't  as  successful  for  Otis.   Anyway,  I  remember  going  out 

with  him  and  sitting  in  the  car  while  he  went  in  and  came  out  with 
this  dripping  shopping  bag. 

Cravath:   This  was  after  you  were  married? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  oh,  yes.   Quite  a  long  time  after  we  were  married.   He  brought 
that  out,  and  we  took  it  up  to  our  little  Telegraph  Hill  flat,  and 
he  was  sure  that  he  could  cure  that  skin.   The  only  experience  that 
he  had  had  with  working  with  human  skin  was  in  Paris .   One  of  his 
closest  friends,  and  I  think  really  his  longest  friend  from  his 
Paris  days  was  a  poet  named  Noel  Bureau.   Noel  had  had  a  sweetheart 
or  a  mistress  or  something,  with  whom  he  broke  up,  and  she  subsequently 
drowned  herself  in  the  Seine.   He  was  also  a  medical  student,  and 
her  body  came  up  on  the  dissecting  table,  and  he  recognized  her. 
So  he  took,  secretly,  a  little  piece  of  skin  from  between  her 
breasts,  and  he  harbored  it  and  treasured  it  for  years  until  he 


67 


Oldfield:   got  himself  with  another  woman.   He  gave,  the  piece  of  skin  to  Otis. 
And  Otis  used  it  to  bind  a  book.   It's  only  a  little  piece;  it's 
just  the  backing  of  the  book. 

I  have  seen  that  book  many  times.   In  fact,  it's  around  here 
somewhere,  except  I  can't  put  my  finger  on  it.   I  don't  know  exactly 
where. 

Anyway,  this  is  what  gave  him  the  idea  of  binding  these  erotic 
books  in  human  skin.   He  was  sure  he'd  be  able  to  do  it  because  he'd 
handled  human  skin  before.   He  didn't  know,  I'm  sure,  how  much  work 
had  been  done  on  that  piece  that  he  had  before  he  got  it.   But  he 
thought  he  knew  how.  Also,  he  gave  instructions  to  the  man  who 
arranged  for  him  to  get  it,  that  it  should  be  the  skin  from  the 
inside  of  the  thigh,  because  this  would  be  the  easiest  to  handle 
and  the  finest  textured  of  any  skin  on  the  human  body. 

When  we  got  it  up  to  Telegraph  Hill,  it  turned  out  to  be  the 
whole  abdomen,  with  all  the  fat  and  the  tendons  and  the  thickenings 
stuck  to  it.   I  remember  trying  to  help  him.   He  put  that  skin  over 
stovepipes,  and  we  tried  to  scrape  the  fat  off  of  it.   We  put  it  in 
formaldehyde.   We  tried  to  scrape  the  fat  off  of  it.  We  tried  to 
scrape  the  thickened  parts  away.   Finally,  it  got  to  stink,  and  I 
refused  to  work  on  it  anymore.   Eventually,  he  put  it  in  the  garbage 
can.   [laughter]   I  don't  know  why  we  weren't  arrested  for  murder! 

DuCasse:   Well,  they  didn't  inspect  your  garbage. 

Oldfield:   The  garbage  man  came,  and  he  got  rid  of  it. 

Cravath:   Oh,  Helen,  I  never  heard  that  story! 


68 


Oldfield:   He  never  did  bind  a  book  with  human  skin. 

Cravath:    Oh,  he  didn't?   I  thought  he  had  because  I  heard — 

Oldfield:   It  was  just  that  one  little  one,  this  little  back.   I  am  quite  sure 
that  Bureau  had  cured  that  skin  before  he  gave  it  to  Otis,  because 
he  kept  it  for  a  long  time. 

DuCasse:   There  must  have  been  a  secret  to  it. 

Oldfield:   Well,  if  I  could  believe  what  he  told  me,  he  knew  all  about  it. 
He  had  learned.   And  maybe  he  did  participate,  but  he  certainly 
didn't  know  how.   And,  of  course,  he  got  the  skin  from  the  wrong 
part  of  the  bodies,  besides,  which  made  it  more  difficult.   But 
anyway,  that  was  the  reason  that  he  had  it,  because  he  had  in  mind 
these  erotic  books  that  he  was  being  sent  by  a  friend  in  Los  Angeles 
who  had  a  little  bookstore.   A  little  bookstore,  I  afterwards  learned, 
that  had  a  very  dubious  reputation.   It  was  called  The  Satyr,  and 
it  was  a  perfect  title.   The  man  who  ran  it  bootlegged  the  printing 
of  Chick  Sayles '   The  Outhouse. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  yes.   And  to  think  that  that  was  ever  considered  pornographic! 
[laughter]   That  innocent  little  book. 

Oldfield:   Hardly  pornographic.   Anyway,  oh,  it  was  a  big  seller,  you  know,  when 
it  came  out.   He  printed  it  privately,  without  any  authorization, 
and  he  got  caught,  and  they  sent  him  to  jail.   That  was  just  one 
of  his  little  tricks. 

I  remember  he  used  to  come  up  to  see  us  on  Telegraph  Hill  and 
bring  jewelry  for  out  little  girls.   He  was  a  quite  a  lavish  type 
of  guy.   He  liked  to  make  a  show  of  such  things.   And  I  know  both  of 


69 


Oldfield:   our  kids  thought  he  was  great.   His  name  was  Stanley  Rose.   I  don't 
know  what  happened  to  him.   He  eventually  did  get  out  of  jail.   I 
don't  know  whether  he  went  back  into  the  book  business  or  not. 
[laughter]   But  he  was  the  one  who  made  these  contacts  with  these 
movie  personalities  and  sent  Otis  the  orders. 

Otis  would  bind  these  books  and  send  them  back  to  Stanley,  and 
Stanley  might  have  added  to  the  price,  I  don't  know.   He  was  totally 
unscrupulous  about  things  like  that. 

DuCasse:   Did  Otis  ever  get  paid  for  his  work? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  got  paid  what  he  asked.   But  he  didn't  ask  very  much  considering 
what  he  was  doing.   He  was  sending  this  pornographic  literature  with 
pornographic  bindings  in  the  mail.   He  might  have  gotten  caught,  too. 

DuCasse:    It  shows  how  many  things  get  by,  just  through — 

Oldfield:   He  was  just  sending  them  parcel  post.   They  came  that  way,  and 
he  sent  them  back  that  way. 

And  he  always  had  very  strange  ideas  about  the  value  of  money. 
It  was  never  realistic.   He  never  really  changed  from  francs  to 
dollars.   And  every  dollar  was  so  much  to  him  that  he  always  under- 
priced  his  work.   Now,  when  I  have  an  opportunity  to  sell  something, 
I  multiply  his  prices  by  five. 

DuCasse:   Of  course  you  would  have  to,  naturally.   And  then  you  would  have  to 
multiply  them  because  everything  has  gone  up  so  much. 

Oldfield:   Everything  has  gone  up  so,  and  his  were  so  modest.   But  you  can't 
believe  how  unrealistic  people  are  about  the  value  of  artworks, 
that  often  prices  them  too  high,  even  that.   Something  that  he  would 


70 


Oldfield:   ask  fifteen  or  twenty  dollars  for  is  now  a  hundred  dollars. 

People  often  think  that  that's  too  much.   It  was  such  a  little  thing, 

you  know,  such  a  little  thing. 
DuCasse:    I  think  many  of  them  did  that.   I  know  my  father  never  charged  the 

proper  amounts  for  his  paintings.   I  think  there  was  only  one  painting 

that  he  ever  really  got  the  right  amount. 
Cravath:    I  never  have  charged  the  proper  amount. 
DuCasse:    I  think  most  artists,  when  they  price  things  themselves,  don't  do 

themselves  justice.   This  has  to  be  done  by  an  agent  or  by  a  gallery. 
Oldfield:   But  at  the  time  the  paintings  that  he  priced  at  two  to  four  hundred 

dollars  were  considered  overpriced  by  some  people.   I  remember 

Whedie  said  that.   She  said  that  artists  would  be  able  to  sell 

more  if  they  didn't  overprice  their  paintings.   She  was  running  a 

gallery  at  the  time. 
DuCasse:   When  you  speak  of  pricing  and  so  forth,  did  he  exhibit  a  great 

deal?  Did  he  have  one-man  shows? 
Oldfield:   Oh,  yes.   He  had  one-man  shows  every  year  for — we  used  to  go  on 

safaris  during  the  summer.   I  think  I  told  you  the  story  of  finding 

one  of  my  paintings  and  asking  him  who  did  it.   He  did  this  every 

summer  for,  I  guess,  about  the  first  ten  years  that  we  were  married, 

and  had  a  show  at  the  Beaux  Arts  gallery  as  long  as  it  was  there. 
Cravath:    Sometimes  he  had  a  show  at  The  Modern  Gallery,  didn't  he,  on 

Montgomery  Street. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  I  think  he  did.   But  that  was  after  it  moved  upstairs, 

and  Whedie  was  running  it.   But  not  when  it  was  in  the  original 


71 


Oldfield:   location. 

He,  of  course,  sent  to  juried  shows  all  over  the  country. 
And  after  we  moved  to  Telegraph  Hill,  he  became  interested  in  the 
activity  on  the  waterfront,  and  the  activity  of  the  hill:   the  kids 

and  the  inhabitants  of  the  hill:   the  bohemians ,  the  kids,  and  the 
X" 

others.   At  that  time,  Montgomery  Street  wasn't  paved:   they  were 

two  levels,  but  they  were  dirt.   And  Julius'  Castle  was  there, 

and  just  beyond  where  we  lived. 

DuCasse:   You  were  on  the  east  side,  weren't  you? 
Oldfield:   No,  we  were  on  the  west  side,  but  it  was  way  up.   We  overlooked 

the  east  side  totally,  you  see.  We  overlooked  all  the  hill  that 

went  down  towards  Sansome  Street. 

Cravath:    Is  that  building  still  there,  the  one  where  you  lived? 
Oldfield:   Yes. 

DuCasse:    That  must  have  been  quite  close  to  Coit  Tower,  then. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  the  tower  is  above  it. 
Cravath:   We  ought  to  go  up  and  take  a  walk  up  there. 
Oldfield:   Yes. 

Cravath:   The  building  where  we  had  a  studio  on  Filbert  Street,  too. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  that  was  Russian  Hill. 

Cravath:   No,  it  was  Filbert  Street,  right  up  near  the  school. 
Oldfield:   Oh,  yes. 
DuCasse:   There's  one  little  fact  that  I  wanted  to  correct,  something  that 

I  said  when  we  were  discussing  the  California  College  of  Arts 

and  Crafts  and  Marty  and  the  Meyers  and  so  forth.   I  had  erroneously 


72 


DuCasse:   said  that  I  went  there  in  1926.   I  went  there  in  1928.   I  was 
anticipating  a  little  bit. 

Oldfield:   I  was  wondering,  because  that  was  very  shortly  after  I  left. 

I  was  there  until  1925.   I  don't  remember  whether  I  was  a  student 
there  during  '26  at  all.   I  may  have  been,  because  I  wasn't  married 
until — yes,  I  was  there  as  a  student  very  close  to  the  time  when 
I  was  married,  because 


[end  tape  3,  side  A;  begin  tape  3,  side  B] 


DuCasse:   When  we  were  talking  about  the  bookbinding,  I  was  reminded  of 
the  books  that  he  illustrated,  the  two  books  that  he  did  (at 
least  we  know  of  two  books).   One  was  McTeague,  by  Frank  Norris, 
and  the  other  was  his  journals,  his  Alaskan  journals.   I  believe 
that  McTeague  came  first,  didn't  it? 

Oldfield:  McTeague  was  really  just  illustrations,  althoug  his  illustrations 
were  just  chapter  headings,  line  drawings  of  chapter  headings. 
You  know  what  McTeague  is.   It's  the  story  of  a  dentist  in  San 
Francisco  in  the  early  days  who  was  ill-prepared  for  what  he  was 
doing,  but  hung  out  a  shingle  anyway.   It's  just  full  of  San  Francisco 
atmosphere.   Otis'  drawings  were  just  drawings  that  were  recognizably 
San  Francisco  silhouettes,  you  know. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  who  the  publisher  was,  by  any  chance? 


73 


Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was  Jane  Grabhorn,  and  Bill  Roth.   They  called  themselves 
the  Colt  Press. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  about  what  year  that  might  have  been? 

Oldfield:   It  was  in  the  early  years  of  the  war,  early  forties,  maybe.   After 
Pearl  Harbor,  but  not  too  long  after,  but  not  too  long  after, 
because  I  remember — 

DuCasse:   Forty-two  or  '43,  probably. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  maybe.   It  was  during  the  time  when  we  were  still  frightened 

of  being  invaded,  and  we  had  blackouts.   We  were  at  a  cocktail  party 
which  had  something  to  do  with  the  publication  of  this  book.   I 
think  it  was  the  publication  of  it. 

DuCasse:   Maybe  it  was  an  autographing  party. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was  a  cocktail  party,  and  it  was  on  the  top  floor  of  one 
of  the  downtown  buildings.   As  I  remember,  it  was  Geary  Street 
somewhere.   I  don't  remember  which  building  it  was. 

Anyway,  we  were  at  this  cocktail  party  when  the  sirens  went  off. 
And  all  the  lights  went  out.  We  had  left  our  two  children,  who  were 
at  that  time  maybe  twelve,  thirteen,  fourteen  years  old,  studying 
while  we  went  to  the  cocktail  party.  We  thought  they  were  old  enough 
to  stay,  and  so  did  they,  without  babysitters.   So  we  had  chanced 
it,  and  this  siren  went  off. 

So  we  thought  immediately  of  them.   We  were  frightened — especially 
I  was  frightened.  We  got  out  into  the  street,  because  all  the 
lights  went  off  on  the  top  of  that  building,  and  we  had  to  walk 
down  the  stairs.  We  got  out  in  the  street;  there  were  no  street 


74 


Oldfield:   cars  running,  there  were  no  lights.   I  remember  walking  up  Stockton 
Stockton  Street  through  the  tunnel  to  Chinatown,  and  then  up  Union 
Street  to  where  we  lived  with  my  heart  in  my  mouth.   I  was  so  afraid 
that  they  had  been  terribly  frightened.   They  studied  like  all  kids 
did,  with  the  radio  on.   Of  course,  that  went  off.   And  the  lights 
went  out.   We  got  there,  and  they  were  just  as  cool  as  they  could 
be.   They  had  found  candles,  and  they  thought  that  it  was  a  failure 
of  the  PG&E.   They  were  not  disturbed  at  all.   They  were  just  going 
on  with  their  studies.   I  thought  it  was  great  too.   But  such  an 
unnecessary  panic  on  my  part ! 

DuCasse:   And  at  such  a  time,  too,  when  you  were  really  supposed  to  enjoy 
that  evening. 

Oldfield:   It  was  a  cocktail  party,  and  I  imagine  it  was  pretty  much  over 

by  the  time  this  happened,  because  it  was  totally  dark  when  we  got 
out  on  the  street. 

DuCasse:   Did  they  approach  Otis — Grabhorn  and  Roth? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  Jane  Grabhorn  did.   Jane  was  Robert's  wife,  you  know.   Otis  knew 
the  Grabhorn  brothers  very,  very  well  from  the  beginning.   He  did 
binding  for  them.   He  bound  their  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass .   He 
had  done  a  number  of  other  things  for  them. 

DuCasse:   Did  he  do  other  illustrations  for  them?  Do  you  remember? 

Oldfield:   No,  he  never  did  any  illustrations  for  them.  Mallett  Dean  was 
doing  all  of  their  illustration.   It  wasn't  until  the  Grabhorns 
separated,  and  Jane  started  up  this  Colt  Press  with  Bill  Roth  that 
he  was  asked  to  do  any  illustrations.   So  he  did  those.   He  did 


75 


Oldfield:   a  drawing  for  each  chapter  heading,  and  also  Colt  Press  Logo  was  a 
pony.   Afterwards,  they  published  an  edition  of  Kipling,  which 
had  to  do  with  his  visit  to  San  Francisco,  and  that  poem  about 
"East  is  east,  and  West  is  west.  .  ."  and  all  that  stuff.   I  don't 
know  whether  I  can  find  it  or  not,  but  I  think  it's  up  there  on 
that  top  shelf.   She  sent  Otis  an  autographed  copy,  saying  that 
she  had  never  found  anything  better  for  San  Francisco,  and  that 
she  used  some  of  the  same  drawings  as  headings  in  that  book. 

DuCasse:    So  he  didn't  do  anything  especially  for  that. 

Oldfield:   It  was  just  what  she  had  left  from  the — a  very  interesting  thing 

happened  to  me  years  later  when  I  was  teaching  at  the  Hamlin  School. 
Part  of  my  job  was  helping  one  of  the  seniors  who  was  on  the  staff 
of  the  school  yearbook  to  make  her  drawings,  which  were  to  be 
headings  like  that.   The  yearbook  at  that  time  was  printed  by  the 
Grabhorn  Press.  When  the  students  took  their  drawings  for  that 
yearbook,  Ed  Grabhorn  saw  them,  and  he  thought  Otis  had  done  them, 
[laughter] 

DuCasse:    Isn't  that  something? 

Oldfield:   Imagine — through  me!   Otis  never  even  knew  what  the  book  was, 
never  saw  it.   Somehow  or  other,  not  consciously,  I  maneuvered 
this  child  into  making  line  drawings  that  were  so  much  like  Otis' 
that  Ed  Grabhorn  was  fooled. 

Cravath:    She  must  have  been  pretty  gifted  then. 

Oldfield:   Well,  I  don't  know.   I  don't  know  whether  she  was  gifted  or  I  was! 


76 


Oldfield:   I  didn't  do  the  drawings,  no.   I  didn't  do  the  drawings.   And 

she  didn't  know  Otis  or  anything  about  him,  and  that's  really  in 

that  book. 

But  I  am  conscious  that  I  knew  that  those  line  drawings  were 

very  simple  and  effective.   She  had  been  directed  to  make  line 

drawings — no,  she  had  been  directed  to  make  drawings  for  the 

headings  of  the  various  sections  which  had  to  do  with  various 

areas  in  San  Francisco. 

I  remember  once  we  went  out  to  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  that's 

one  of  the  things  that  he  had  in  there.   And  one  was  the  Coit  Tower — 

you  know,  all  various  parts  that  are  easily  recognized  symbols 

of  areas. 

So  without  having  her  see  the  drawings  that  he  had  made  or 

know  anything  about  them,  I  guided  her  into  doing  these  drawings 

that  fooled  Ed  Grabhorn. 
DuCasse:    I  think  that's  extraordinary. 
Oldfield:   It  was  really  ridiculous.   It  was  a  little  irritating  to  me  at  the 

time,  because  I  was  having  too  much  trouble  to  escape  this  dominance 

anyway . 

DuCasse:   Yes,  I  can  understand  how  that  wouldn't  be  the  happiest  thing  for  you. 
Oldfield:   I  didn't  want  to  do  it.   I  did  it  unconsciously. 
DuCasse:   Now  we  hear  that  Otis  took  this  trip  to  Alaska.   Did  you  go  with  him 

on  that  trip? 
Oldfield:   No. 
DuCasse:   Roughly  when  would  that  have  been,  do  you  think? 


77 


Oldfield:   That  was  in  1931.   He,  by  this  time,  had  had  two  or  three  shows 
in  New  York,  the  first  one  exceedingly  successful.   It  was  of 
drawings . 

DuCasse:   Do  you  remember  what  gallery  it  was? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  Montross.   It  had  been  arranged  by  Walt  Kuhn,  who  visited 
us  here  when  he  was  in  San  Francisco.   I  guess  it  was  '28.   The 
first  show  was  in  '29.  Walt  had  seen  the  drawings  that  Otis  was 
accumulating  of  the  happenings  of  the  hill:   the  activities  of  the 
kids,  and  the  herd  of  goats  that  went  past  our  window  every  day, 
and  the  goat  woman  who  carried  a  bundle  of  green  grass  on  her  head 
nad  herded  the  goats  back  to  their  stable,  which  was  in — 

Cravath:   Can  you  think  that  San  Francisco  had  that  sort  of  thing? 

DuCasse:    Isn't  it  wonderful  to  think  of? 

Oldfield:   It  was  in  Castle  Street.   Do  you  know  where  Castle  Street  is?  A 
little  alley  off  of  Union  Street,  right  across  from  where  Rudolph 
Schaeffer's  school  was  at  one  time.   There  was  a  stable;  they  had 
a  stable  in  there.   Every  day,  when  there  was  anything  for  them  to 
eat,  they  herded  those  goats  up  to  Montgomery  Street,  and  down 
there  to  where  the  green  grass  grew. 

It  was  often  very,  very  muddy  at  that  time.   I  remember  standing 
there  at  the  top  of  Union  Street,  and  seeing  those  goats  being  brought 
home,  and  skidding  because  Union  Street  was  paved.   They  would  put 
on  all  four  brakes,  and  they'd  skid  down  to  Castle  Street,  they 
were  so  muddy.   So  Otis  drew  all  these  activities, 

Cravath:    I  can't  remember  that. 


78 


Oldfield:   Well,  you  didn't  live  there,  dear. 

Cravath:   No,  but  even  so,  I  would  have  thought  I  would  have  been  aware  of 
what  was  going  on. 

Oldfield:   Anyway,  these  drawings  were  sent  to  New  York.   The  next  year,  Otis 
went  back  there.   He  was  very  disappointed,  because  the  show  had 
been  a  sell-out,  but  the  gallery  hadn't  collected.   They  had  delivered 
the  drawings,  but  hadn't  collected.   So  Otis  got  the  addresses,  and 
went  around  and  knocked  on  people's  doors  and  asked  for  him  money. 

Anyway,  he  came  back  after  that.   The  next  year,  '29,  he  had  the 
opportunity  to  make  a  trip  up  from  Sacramento — I  think  it  was  to 
Red  Bluff,  or  maybe  Colusa — on  an  old  stern  wheel  paddle  schooner 
named  the  Dover .   He  brought  back  a  collection  of  drawings — or  he 
made  them  after  he  got  back — he  brought  back  the  notes — from  that 
trip,  which  he  again  sent  to  New  York.   It  was  shown  in  the  downtown 
gallery.   I  can't  remember  her  name,  but  the  woman  who  ran  that 
gallery  really  took  advantage  of  the  fact  that  he  wasn't  there. 
She  had  them  framed,  and  she  shipped  them  back  with  all  the  glass 
on  the  frame  in  such  a  big  crate,  such  a  heavy  crate,  that  when  it 
arrived  at  our  studio  on  Telegraph  Hill,  we  didn't  have  the  money 
to  pay  the  shipping  charges.   Not  only  that,  they  weren't  all  there. 
There  was  about  half  of  them. 

So  this  turned  Otis  off  on  New  York  from  then  on.   He  never 
had  another  show  in  New  York,   He  didn't  want  anything  to  do  with 
those  New  York  galleries . 

DuCasse:   I  can't  blame  him  if  they  treated  him  that  way. 


79 


Oldfield:   Well,  the  first  time,  he  had  to  collect  himself.   The  next  time, 
he  didn't  get  his  drawings  back.   And  also,  he  was  out  the  money 
that  he  had  to  find  to  pay  the  shipping  charges.   They  came  back 
by  railway  express  in  a  huge  big  case.   And  it  was  all  glass, 
because  the  frames  had  glass!   Anyway,  that  was  one  of  the  un 
pleasant  experiences  that  turned  him  off  on  being  a  New  York  artist. 

Another  thing  was  that  when  he  was  there  during  the  time  of 
his  second  show — he  went  in  '29,  I  remember,  and  he  was  only  gone 
a  couple  of  weeks,  and  he  was  gone  at  Christmas  time.   So  he  went 
during  his  Christmas  vacation  from  the  art  school.   They  told  him 
while  he  was  there  that  he  had  the  opportunity  to  become  a  well- 
known  and  conspicuous  New  York  artist,  but  he  would  have  to  come 
back  there  and  live  without  his  family.   But  that  time,  he  had 
two  children. 

So  he  came  home  and  said,  "I've  decided  to  be  a  provincial  artist." 
[laughter] 

DuCasse:   Yes,  Marty  was  pretty  much  the  same  way.   He  didn't  want  to  go  to 
New  York  either.  Macbeth  wanted  to  represent  and  have  his  work, 
and  he  just  wasn't  interested  in  having  to  move  himself  across 
the  country.   I  can  understand  that. 

Oldfield:   Helper  was  her  name,  the  woman  who  ran  the  downtown  gallery. 
She  had  a  gallery  with  that  name  on  it,  too,  at  one  time, 
but  I've  forgotten  the  continuity  of  it. 

Anyway,  he  came  back.   After  he  made  the  trip  on  the  Dover,  he 
had  a  show  of  the  drawings  that  he  made  from  that  trip  here  before 
he  went.   I  don't  remember  where  it  was,  whether  it  was  in  the 


80 


Oldfield:  Beaux  Arts  gallery  or  at  the  art  school.  Anyway,  he  had  a  show, 
and  it  attracted  quite  a  few  buyers  here.  One  of  them  was  a  man 
named  [pause] — I  can't  remember  right  now. 

DuCasse:   Maybe  it'll  come  to  you  as  you  go  on. 

Oldfield:   Anyway,  he  was  the  president  of  the  Stock  Exchange  Club,  and  vice- 
president  of  a  company  called  the  Union  Fish  Company,  which  ran 
boats  to  the  Bering  Sea  to  fish  for  cod  every  year.   So  he  had 
bought — Bertram  Allenson  was  his  name — he  had  bought  several  of  the 
drawings  that  Otis  had  made  from  his  upriver  trip.   So  he  arranged 
for  one  of  the  Union  Fish  Company  ships  to  give  passage  to  Otis 
the  following  year.   Otis  was  invited  by  the  company.   I  wasn't 
invited.   There  were  no  women  on  the  boat.   They  considered  it  bad 
luck  to  have  a  female  aboard  even.   So  there  was  no  question  of 
my  going. 

So  Otis  took  time  off  from  his  teaching  job  in  the  spring  of 
1931,  and  he  made  this  trip.   There  again,  before  he  left,  I  met 
the  captain  and  the  mate,  and  I  had  them  to  dinner  up  at  our  little 
flat  on  Telegraph  Hill.   Otis  reported  when  he  came  home  that  every 
time  anything  interesting  happened  on  deck,  they  would  rout  him 
out  and  the  captain  would  remind  him  that  he  had  promised  his 
wife  he'd  produce  five  hundred  drawings  on  that  ship.   I  don't 
remember  making  that  request  at  all!   But  he  was  largely  responsible 
for  some  of  the  things  that  Otis  got.  When  they  had  all  hands  on 
deck  to  reef  all  the  sails  in  a  storm,  they  got  him  up  on  deck 
and  they  lashed  him  to  mast,  and  made  him  draw. 

DuCasse:   Good  for  them!   He  didn't  miss  a  trick,  did  he? 


81 


Oldfield:   This  was  very  rewarding  for  him.   That  was  the  source  of  the  book 
that  you  mentioned,  the  other  book.   That  was  printed  by  Grabhorn 
Hoyemu,  which  was  Jane  Grabhorn 's  husband  and  Andrew  Hoyemt;.   That 
wasn't  Grabhorn  Press,  really  at  all,  although  Bob  Grabhorn  was 
still  around  at  that  time. 

DuCasse:   Were  those  illustrations  pen  and  ink,  or — 

Oldfield:   They  were  charcoal  drawings,  defined  by  pen  and  ink,  and  tinted 
with  water  color.   What  is  left  of  them  is  framed  on  the  wall  in 
other  room,  if  you'd  like  to  see  it.   There  are  about  twenty-five, 
or  twenty-eight  maybe,  left,  because  a  lot  of  them  were  sold. 
They  were  shown  in  San  Francisco  first,  and  then  they  traveled  all 
around  the  country. 

DuCasse:   Did  they  ever  travel  up  to  Alaska? 

Oldfield:   No.   They  aren't  really  concerned  with  Alaska,  because  they're  all 
on  the  ship.   The  only  time  they  were  anywhere  near  Alaska  was  in 
Dutch  Harbor,  and  Otis  left  the  ship  there,  and  didn't  know  how  he 
was  going  to  get  back.   He  hadn't  made  any  arrangements  to  come 
home.   He  just  went  on  this  ship  without  knowing  how  he  was  going 
to  get  home. 

I  was  staying  with  my  parents  on  the  farm  at  Santa  Rosa  with 
my  two  little  kids.   I  remember  I  was  very  worried  at  one  time. 
I  remember  being  in  the  kitchen  with  my  mother,,  and  the  farm 
kitchen  had  an  old,  woodburning  cooks tove.   I  remember  I  was 
feeding  wood  into  it — we  were  cooking  something.   She  was  upset 
about  something  that  was  going  on  there,  I  don't  remember  what 


82 


Oldfield:   it  was  at  this  time.   I  remember  saying  to  her,  "What  are  you 
kicking  about?  For  all  I  know,  I  may  be  a  widow!"   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   You  were  really  feeling  sorry  for  yourself!   Did  you  get  any 
communications  from  him  along  the  trip?  Did  he  ever  have  a 
chance  to — ? 

Oldfield:   No. 

DuCasse:   Probably  they  didn't  stop  at  any  ports  or  anything  until  they 
got  to  their  destination. 

Oldfield:   I  was  on  the  farm,  you  see.   I  wasn't  at  home.   He  couldn't  get 
me  by  telephone.   The  first  thing  I  got  was  a  telegram  that  he 
sent  from  Seattle — no,  he  sent  the  telegram,  I  guess,  from  Dutch 
Harbor.   I  got  a  telegram,  and  I  remember  coming  down  to  San 
Francisco  and  calling  Bill  Gerstle  and  telling  him  that  I  was 
worried  because  I'd  had  this  telegram,  and  I  didn't  know  where 
Otis  was  or  how  he  was  going  to  get  home.   He  said,  "No  news  is 
good  news;  don't  worry.  We  don't  have  any  news.   We  don't  know 
where  the  Louise  is,  but  we  expect  that  she's  up  there  in  the 
Bering  Sea,  fishing  for  cod."  And  he  didn't  want  to  stay  there 
for  fishing,  you  know.  After  he  saw  the  trip,  he  didn't  want  to 
stay  there  anymore. 

So  he  got  off  at  Dutch  Harbor.   It  happened  that  a  Bureau  of 
Fisheries  tug  was  coming  home  from  the  Pribilof  Islands — that's 
what  the  name  is,  isn't  it?   Isn't  that  right?  Pribilof  Islands — 
they're  somewhere  up  in  the  Bering  Sea — bringing  an  American 
schoolteacher  home  at  the  end  of  a  stint.   So  the  company — I  don't 
know  whether  it  was  the  Alaska  Commercial  Company  or  the  Union 


83 


Oldfield:   Fish  Company — they  arranged  passage  for  him  on  this  Bureau  of 
Fisheries  tug. 

DuCasse:   That  must  have  been  a  rough  trip. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was  very  rough.   He  was  seasick  all  the  way,  he  said.   It 
was  a  small  boat.   They  got  down  to — it  wasn't  Anchorage,  it  was 
one  of  those  other  Alaska  towns — 

DuCasse:   Juneau? 

Oldfield:   It  might  have  been  Juneau,  but  it  was  a  port.   Anyway,  the  captain 
of  the  tug  died  on  the  trip  between  Dutch  Harbor  and  the  Alaskan 
port.   They  had  no  way  of  taking  care  of  him,  so  they  put  his  body 
on  the  top  of  the  cabin — it  was  freezing  cold,  you  know — and 
they  froze  him  and  carried  him  to — Juneau 's  not  a  port,  is  it? 

DuCasse:   Maybe  it's  not. 

Oldfield:   I  can  easily  check  it.   [brief  tape  interruption] 

DuCasse:    Seward? 

Oldfield:   Seward.   When  they  got  to  Seward,  they  held  the  funeral  for  this 
captain.   Otis  was  so  impressed  by  the  fact  that  all  of  these 
Eskimo  women  had  silk  stockings  and  fur  coats.   They  were  so 
dressed  up  and  it  was  so  fancy,  that  he  was  inspired  to  buy  me  a 
pelt.   He  brought  home  this  big  fox  pelt  which  I  never  really 
enjoyed  wearing,  because  I  don't  like  to  wear  animal  skins. 

DuCasse:    I'm  not  a  fur  person  either. 

Oldfield:   Now,  I've  lost  track  again.   He  got  to  Seward.   This,  I  believe, 
was  where  he  sent  the  telegram.   So  I  got  that,  and  I  didn't 
hear  anything  more  from  him  for  such  a  long  time,  and  I  began  to 


84 


Oldfield:   get  worried.   I  figured — I  think  he  had  probably  said  that  he  was  on 
his  way  home.   That  was  when  I  worried  that  I  might  be  a  widow.   I 
got  back  to  San  Francisco,  and  called  Bill  Gerstle.   He  said  not 
to  worry.   They  didn't  know  what  had  happened,  but  no  news  is 
good  news,  and  all  that  stuff.   So  I  went  back  up  to  the  farm. 
Eventually  I  got  another  telegram  from  Seattle.   He  was  coming 
down  on  the  train.   He  had  gotten  to  Seattle.   I  don't  remember 
how  he  got  to  Seattle. 

DuCasse:    It  was  probably  by  boat. 

Oldfield:   By  boat  I'm  sure.   I  don't  think — and  he  wouldn't  fly.   So  he 
probably  came  down  on  boat  from  Seward. 

DuCasse:   That  must  have  been  a  fascinating  experience  for  him. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  actually  he  was  so  involved  in  it  that  people  used  to  tease 
him  because  he  talked  about  it  all  the  time  and  like  to  reminisce 
about  it  all  the  time.   He  wrote  several  very  expanded  versions 
of  the  diary  that's  in  this  book,  and  tried  to  get  them  published. 
He  thought  the  drawings  would  make  a  good  book,  and  he  wanted  to 
write  the  book.   Several  people  offered  to  edit  it  for  him.   He 
got  turned  off  by  that  idea.   He  didn't  want  anybody  monkeying 
or  editing  his  material.   So  he  turned  down  these  offers. 

Finally,  he  made  the  arrangements  with  Grabhorn  Hoyem^  to 
print  it.   They  used  his  own  diary  of  the  trip  verbatim.   He 
lent  it  to  them,  and  they  told  me  they  were  so  entranced  with 
the  flavor  of  his  own  log  of  the  journey  that  they  printed  it 
verbatim — typographical  errors,  phonetic  spelling,  everything. 


85 


Oldfield:   That  would  have  pleased  him  very  much,  but  he  died  just  before  it 
came  out.   So  he  didn't  get  to  autograph  and  he  didn't  get  to  see 
it.   But  it  has  been  a  very  successful  enterprise,  I  think.   I 
think  they've  sold  them  all  by  now. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  because  that  kind  of  personal  reminiscence  is  always  fascinating 
to  people.   And  this  would  be  unique,  you  see.   No  one  else  had — 
well,  not  since  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast  had  somebody  really 
catalogued  and  recorded  the  goings  on  of  a  merchant  marine  ship. 

Cravath:   This  is  wonderful:   all  the  days,  like  "Friday  the  seventeenth  of 
April,  nineteen  days  out."  He's  got  the  whole  thing.   Beautifully 
done,  isn't  it? 

Oldfield:   It's  mostly  anecdotal  things — the  colorful  character  of  the  men 

that  manned  the  ship.   It  had  thirty-some  men  on  it,  and  not  a 

one 

single  liked  books. 

DuCasse:   They  just  didn't  expect  that  they  would  have  them. 

Oldfield:   Well,  no,  it  was  that  the  company  that  operated  those  boats  didn't 
give  a  hoot  about  the  men.   They  were  virtually  Shanghai'd!   They 
handed  out  money  to  them  to  go  and  drink  with,  and  then  they 
rounded  them  up  in  the  bars  and  dumped  them  in  jail,  and  then  poured 
them  onto  the  ship  before  they  sailed.   Of  course,  Otis  recorded 
all  that.   The  company  was  a  little  bit  miffed  about  it  at  one  point. 

Cravath:   About  the  book. 

Oldfield:   Well,  not  about  the  book,  they  didn't  see  the  book.   But  he  told 
these  stories  along  with  exhibiting  the  drawings. 

DuCasse:   That  certainly  is  wonderful  that  it  was  preserved  in  this  form  in 


86 


DuCasse:   this  beautiful  book. 

came  out 

Cravath:    I  remember  when  this — shortly  after  Otis  died. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  just  didn't  quite  make  it. 

DuCasse:   What  was  the  date  of  Otis'  death? 

Oldfield:   May  18,  1969.   So  it  came  out  in  '69,  a  little  after.   I  guess  the 

date  is  in  there  somewhere. 

DuCasse:    It's  a  pity  he  couldn't  have  seen  the  finished — 
Oldfield:   I'm  so  sorry  he  couldn't  have  seen  it.   It's  a  beautiful  job. 
DuCasse:   That's  really  splendid,  though,  that  it  was  done. 
Oldfield:   I  think  it  may  have  actually  been  printed  before  he  died.   But 

by  the  time  it  was  ready  he  was  not  in  shape  to  autograph  it. 


[end  tape  3,  side  B] 


Date  of  Interview:   4  February  1981 
Begin  tape  4,  side  A 


DuCasse:   When  I  went  over  the  last  session,  I  found  that  there  were  a  couple 
of  things  that  weren't  absolutely  clear  to  me.   One  of  them  was: 
I  don't  know  that  we  got  the  names  of  your  brother  and  sister, 
I  wanted  to  make  sure  that  we  got  those  down.  Your  brother's  name 
was — 

Oldfield:   Edgar. 

DuCasse:   And  your  sister? 


87 


Oldfield:   Ruth. 

DuCasse:  You  mentioned  about  teaching  at  Hamlin  School,  but  we  never  got  any 
dates  for  that .  Do  you  remember  when  about  how  long  you  taught  and 
more  or  less  when  you  started? 

Oldfield:   I  can  remember  about.   I  started  in  '45,  and  I  taught  there — some 
of  it  part  time — I  was  still  there  until  '71. 

DuCasse:  We  got  your  birth  date,  which  was — you  want  to  give  that  to  me  just 
so  it'll  be  on  the  tape? 

Oldfield:   September  21,  1902. 

DuCasse:    Now  we'll  get  back  to  our  sequence.   We  stopped  after  we  had  talked 
about — I  finally  got  this  all  typed  so  I  knew  what  was  happening. 
We  talked  about  the  two  books  that  he  illustrated,  the  McTeague 
and  we  went  into  great  detail  on  the  one  of  his  Alaskan  trip.   That 
was  later  in  his  career.   We  got  his  death  date,  but  there's  still 
a  lot  we  want  to  know  about  Otis  prior  to  that  time.   One  of  the 
things  that  might  be  interesting  to  others  is  how  he  worked.   When 
he  was  doing  his  own  painting,  did  he  have  any  kind  of  a  special 
schedule,  or  did  he  just  work  in  it  between  his  teaching?  Would 
you  like  to  tell  us  a  little  bit  about  that  now? 

Oldfield:   I  would  say  that  he  painted  all  the  time.   He  was  always  in  his 
studio.   Of  course,  he  had  a  few  hobbies,  too.   He  became  after 
we  moved  to  Telegraph  Hill,  enamored  of  the  boats  that  he  could 
see  from  our  window,  particularly  the  rather  local  ones.   He  was 
not  moved  by  the  big  ocean  liners  or  the  military  boats.   But 
the  little  schooners  that  carried  lumber  up  and  down  the  coast, 
and  the  scows  that  went  up  the  creek  to  Petaluma  and  Napa.   And 


88 


Oldfield:   also  the  ones  that  went  up  the  Sacramento  River.   He  made  a  number 
of  models  of  those,  and  became  so  interested  that  he,  for  years, 
spent  at  least  a  day  a  week  doing  research  in  San  Francisco  library: 
going  through  old  newspapers  and  making  lists  of  sailing  dates  and 
all  kinds  of  little  historical  data  that  he  could  find  in  old 
newspapers  about  the  movements  of  these  boats.   I  don't  know  how 
far  back  that  went,  but  it  was  an  awful  lot  of  stuff,  I  assure  you. 

DuCasse:    That's  very  interesting  that  he  was  aSthorough  as  that. 

Oldfield:   He  was  very  thorough.   In  everything  he  did  he  was  thorough,  but 
he  was  also  stubborn.   If  he  picked  up  a  wrong  clue  and  it  misled 
him,  it  took  an  awfully  long  time  for  him  to  admit  it.   I,  of  course, 
didn't  push  him  into  that,  so  I  don't  really  know  if  there  are 
very  terrible  errors  in  his  records  or  not. 

He  became  so  interested  in  boats  that  it  was  almost  consuming. 
I  imagine  that  it  appeared  a  little  bit  with  his  painting,  although 
probably  not  very  much.   His  output  was  pretty  large  anyway.   He 
painted  every  day  of  the  week  if  he  was  free  to  do  it.  Except  for 
his  teaching  schedule,  nothing  interfered  with  his  activity  in 
the  studio. 

Cravath:   He  never  taught  five  days  a  week,  did  he? 

Oldfield:   No. 

Cravath:   What,  two  days  a  week? 

DuCasse:   Yes,  usually  they  would  do  it  two  or  three  days  a  week. 

Oldfield:   Usually  two  days  a  week,  or  maybe  even  less,  because  a  lot  of 

his  classes  were  special  classes,  like  the  Saturday  afternoon  and 


89 


Oldfield:  morning  classes  that  they  had  at  the  art  school  for  people  who 

couldn't  come  during  the  week,  and  for  children.   He  never  taught 
a  children's  class,  but  for  years  he  had  a  Saturday  afternoon  class 
which  was  open  to  people  of  any  kind.   I  used  to  go  there  with  him 
once  in  a  while.   There  was  one  old  guy  who  came  up  from  a  retirement 
home,  and  he  would  keep  saying  to  Otis,  "Come  on,  professor, 
paint  it  a  little  bit  for  me!" 

Then  he  had  night  classes.   But  until  his  last  two  or  three 
years  at  the  San  Francisco  art  school,  he  didn't  have  a  figure 
painting  class,  which  is  what  he  wanted  all  the  time.   He  finally 
had  for  a  few  years  before  the  war  came  along,  and  that  was  what 
ended  his  teaching  career  at  the  San  Francisco  art  school. 
After  that,  he  taught  at  Arts  and  Crafts, 

DuCasse:   Was  that  during  the  war  years  or  after  the  war  years  that  he  began 
at  Arts  and  Crafts? 

Oldfield:   I  think  it  was  after. 

DuCasse:   That  was  interesting,  because  that  was  one  of  the  things  I  was 
going  to  ask  you,  if  he  taught  right  up  to  the  end,  and  I  was 
thinking  naturally  of  San  Francisco.   But  that's  interesting:   he 
was  really  at  Arts  and  Crafts. 

Oldfield:   He  was  at  Arts  and  Crafts  after  the  war.   During  the  war,  he 
worked  first  at  Moore  Shipyards  as  a  draftsman,  and  later  at 
Fort  Mason.   What  did  they  call  it — it  was  the  Army  Transport 
Service. 

I  have  an  amusing  little  anecdote  I  can  tell  you  about  his 


90 


Oldfield:   work  in  a  shipyard.   There  were  rather  stern  measures  about  this 
during  the  height  of  the  war,  I  guess  it  was,  when  output  was 
very  important,  to  prevent  people  from  moving  to  other  jobs,  and 
leaving  the  shipyards  and  other  things  short-handed.   So  there  was 
a  regulation  that  you  couldn't  quit.   If  you  quit,  you'd  be  black 
balled,  and  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  be  hired  anywhere  else.   So, 
of  course  Otis  quit.   He  couldn't  stand  the  idea  of  anybody  telling 
him  he  couldn't.   It  wasn't  so  much  that  he  wanted  to  quit;  he  was 
pretty  tired  of  the  routine,  because  it  meant  getting  up  at  four  AM, 
and  walking  to  the  ferry  building,  and  taking  a  bus — I  don't  think 
there  were  boats  still  running  then — I  guess  he  took  the  train 
to  Oakland.   Then  he  had  to  walk  some  distance. 

I  remember  I  used  to  pack  him  a  lunch  with  a  thermos  of  soup 
in  it.   He  would  have  this  in  his  lunch  pail.   It  was  still  fairly 
dark  when  he  got  to  Oakland;  he  had  to  walk  across  some  railroad 
tracks.   Invariably,  he  tripped  and  fell  and  broke  the  thermos. 
He  got  very  annoyed  with  that. 

He  would  come  home  and  shake  the  thermos  to  show  me  what  had 
happened.   Anyway,  he  worked  there  for  a  couple  of  years,  I  guess, 
before  this  order  came  out  that  employees  would  be  penalized 
if  they  quit.   So  he  quit.   So  he  was  called  into  the  office  and 
told  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  find  employment  anywhere  else. 
He  didn't  accept  that  ultimatum  either.   So  he  went  to  our  good 
friend,  Dr.  Eloesser       ,  and  told  him  about  what  was  happening. 
There  was  a  court  hearing — I  don't  remember  how  this  court  hearing 
came  about — but  the  doctor  testified  for  him  that  this  was  a  sensitive 


91 


Oldfield:   person,  and  that  his  health  was  in  jeopardy  with  the  job  that  he 
had.   Therefore,  he  was  quite  right  to  quit.   And  Otis  got  the 
judgment. 

So,  then  he  was  employed  by  the  Army  at  Fort  Mason.   He 
stayed  there  until  the  end  of  the  war,  when  all  civiliam  employees 
were  turned  out. 

DuCasse:   That's  great.   What  type  of  thing  did  he  do?  Do  you  remember? 

Oldfield:   At  Fort  Mason?  Whatever  they  needed — he  designed — he  didn't 

actually  paint  them — he  designed  signs.   I  remember  there  were  a 
lot  of  "Welcome  Home"  signs  and  things  like  that.   He  designed  the 
decoration  of  the  bay  sides  of  the  piers,  which  were  planned  to 
welcome  the  returning  soldiers.   I  have  drawings  of  those  designs 
somewhere.   I  couldn't  put  my  finger  on  them,  but  they're  around 
here  somewhere. 

Also,  he  designed  floats  that  were  in  parades  that  dealt  with 
Army  personnel.   I  remember  there  was  one  that  was  a  float  for 
WACs — that's  the  Women's  Army  Corps — he  was  very  thrilled  with  that. 

DuCasse:    I'm  sure  he  did  a  beautiful  job  on  that  one. 

Oldfield:   I  didn't  see  it,  but  apparently  they  were  quite  pleased.   He 

became  friendly  with  some  of  the  officers,  and  talked  to  them  about 
his  hobbies.   Eventually,  one  of  the — I  don't  remember  what  his 
rank  was — one  of  the  officers  asked  him  to  make  a  model  of ,  I  think, 
an  army  tug — I'm  not  sure.   Otis  did  that.   At  the  presentation,  it 
was  quite  a  grand  ceremony,  and  set  him  up  a  great  deal. 

DuCasse:   This  must  have  been  very  satisfying  to  him,  to  be  able  to  do 

something  more  related  to  his  own  talents.   Did  you,  by  any  chance, 


92 


DuCasse:   do  any  war  work,  or  were  you  too  busy  with,  your  family? 

Oldfield:   He  violently  opposed  my  doing  war  work.   I  wanted  to  try  to  do 

something.   I  had  done  some  mechanical  drawings,  but  I  had  a  gap 
in  my  mathematical  education,  so  I  bought  a  book  on  trigonometry. 
I  went  through  it  on  my  own,  much  to  his  distress.   He  accused 
me  of  liking  that  book  better  than  I  liked  him. 

DuCasse:    He  was  not  having  any  rivals  of  any  description,  I  see! 

Oldfield:   No,  he  was  not  having  any  rivals  at  all. 

Cravath:   Didn't  you  work  with  the  Red  Cross? 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  I  did  a  little  volunteer  work. 

Cravath:    I  mean,  I  think  he  was  on  the  Bulletin  of  the  Red  Cross . 

Oldfield:   Yes,  at  the  Bureau  of  Inquiry  at  the  Red  Cross  headquarters. 

Through  Switzerland.   A  lot  of  them  were  very,  very,  difficult. 
Jewish  people  here  who  drew  families.   The  return  messages  would 
sometimes  come  back,  and  they  were  always  terrible.   We  had  to  call 
in  the  people  and  deliver  these  messages. 

DuCasse:   That  must  have  been  heartbreaking. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  it  was.   Otis  didn't  mind  my  doing  it,  as  long  as  it  was 

volunteer  work.   But  he  didn't  want  anything  that  would  be  more 
absorbing  than  that.   I  don't  think  I  worked  more  than  two  or 
three  hours  a  week  at  that. 

DuCasse:   At  least  you  had  the  satisfaction  of  doing  something, 

Oldfield:   Then  it  got  into  another  kind  of  thing.   I  think  it  grew  out  of 
this  same  office.   Anyway,  I  transferred  my  volunteer  activities 
to  a  program  which  was  designed  to  employ  artists  in  rehabilitation 
work,  like  going  into  the  hospitals  and  doing  whatever  the  artist 


93 


Old field: 


Cravath: 
Oldfield: 


DuCasse: 
Oldfield: 


Cravath: 


Oldfield: 


DuCasse: 


could  do  to  assist  in  the  rehabilitation  of  wounded  veterans. 

For  a  while,  through  this  program,  Otis  went  out  to  Letterman 

Hospital  once  a  week  and  made  portrait  drawings  of  the  boys  who 

were  in  the  beds.   The  Red  Cross  provided  a  little  cardboard  tube, 

and  they  rolled  up  their  drawings  and  put  them  in  the  tube,  and 

mailed  them  to  their  parents  or  relatives,  of  course. 

I  think  did  that,  too. 

I  wouldn't  be  surprised.   A  lot  of  people  did  it. 

Otis  did  it  because  it  was  very  easy  for  him,  and  the  Red  Cross 

provided  transportation  both  ways,  so  it  was  very  easy.  What  I 

did  was  work  at  the  museum  with  the  artists  who  were  offering  their 

services  to  work  in  this  rehabilitation  effort.   They  had  to  reviewed 

and  juried.   I  worked  with  Nell  Chidester        who  headed  that 

program. 

Was  that  at  the  De  Young  Museum? 

No,  it  was  the  San  Francisco  Museum.   We  had  a  room  on  the  lower 

floor,  and  people  would  submit  their  work  and  qualifications,  and 

then — I  said  I  worked  as  a  juror.   I  did  more  than  that.   I  worked 

as  an  assistant  to  Nell,  running  the  operation.   I  did  typing,  and 

I  did  telephoning,  contacts  of  all  kinds. 

Wasn't  Dorothy  Liebes     in  charge  of  that  project? 
Well,  Dorothy  Liebesvorked  with  Nell  and  I.   Yes,  it  was  in  the 
carrying-out  of  the  project.   It  was  the  same  project. 
Evidently  it  had  its  offices,  so  to  speak,  at  the  museum. 


94 


Oldfield:   At  the  museum,  yes.   And  the  head  was  Nell          .   Also, 
Leah  Hamilton  worked  there. 

So  that's  the  extent  of  my  war  work.   It  really  wasn't  very  much. 
I  was  ambitious  to  have  a  job  like  Otis  did,  but  he  opposed  the 
idea.   He  had  all  kinds  of  good  arguments:   I  should  sit  home  with 
my  children;  my  children  were  young  teenagers,  and  they  needed  me; 
who  was  going  to  pack  his  lunch? 

DuCasse:   The  good  old  days,  when  the  woman  had  to  be  in  the  home. 

Oldfield:   Well,  that  was  his  conviction. 

DuCasse:    I  can  understand  that,  from  what  you've  told  us  of  him  already. 

Let's  see.   After  his  war  work,  you  said  he  went  over  to 
Arts  and  Crafts  to  teach. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   I'll  have  to  tell  you  how  that  started.   Mr.  Meyer  called 
one  day  and  asked  if  he  would  be  interested  in  a  job,  a  small 
teaching  job.   At  that  time,  Otis  knew  that  he  was  going  to  be 
terminated,  but  he  didn't  know  when.   So  he  said  yes,  that  he  was 
interested  in  a  small  teaching  job.   Apparently  Mr.  Meyer  put  him 
down  for  the  summer  session.   He  hadn't  been  terminated  yet,  and 
when  summer  session  started,  there  was  a  frantic  call  from  Mr. 
Meyer,  "What  happened  to  him?"  because  he  didn't  show  up;  he  was 
still  working  for  the  Army.   It  was  a  misunderstanding,  you  see. 

DuCasse:    I  know  Meyer  was  often  peremptory,  and  he  probably  never  even 
thought  to  remind  Otis  that  he  was  putting  him  down  for 
summer ! 

Oldfield:   I'm  sure  he  didn't,  because  Otis  would  have  known  if  it  had  been 


95 


Oldfield:   definite,  of  course.   But  I  think  that  Meyer  assumed  it,  and  when 
Otis  didn't  show  up,  he  was  terribly  upset.   But  Otis  couldn't 
show  up:   he  was  still  working  for  the  Army.   And  he  explained  it 
to  him.   But  Meyer  said,  "Oh.   You  said  you  would  come.   You  accepted 
the  idea."  But  he  didn't  make  it  plain  to  him  when  he  was  expecting 
him.   So  that  was  his  beginning  at  Arts  and  Crafts.   He  did  start 
in  the  fall  semester,  because  by  that  time  his  Army  job  had  been 
terminated. 

DuCasse:    That  would  have  been  in  '45,  wouldn't  it? 

Oldfield:   Forty-five,  I  think  so. 

DuCasse:    I  imagine  that  they  needed  someone  like  Otis,  because  Marty  took 

ill  in  the  fall-  of  '42  and  died  in  January  of  '43.   And  he  was  their 
main  figure  man,  drawing  and  painting.   I'm  sure  that  they  needed 
a  man  like  Otis  who  could  do  so  many  things. 

Oldfield:   He  did  start  then;  I  guess  it  was  in  the  fall  of  '45.   I  don't 

have  a  record  of  it;  I'm  not  perfectly  sure.   This  sounds  right, 
doesn't  it? 

DuCasse:   Yes,  it  does.   V-J  Day  was  in  August  of  '45. 

Oldfield:   And  when  did  Spencer  Macky    take  over? 

DuCasse:   That  I  don't  know.   It  was  when  Ralph — it  was  in  '46  something. 
I  think  Spencer  Macky   was — 

Oldfield:   I  seem  to  remember  that  it  was  quite  soon  after  Otis  started  working 
there. 

DuCasse:   Then  Meyer  retired.   He  lived  a  little  while  longer,  but  he  was 
retired  then. 


96 


Oldfield:   Spencer  immediately  gave  Otis  a  lot  more  work.   So  he  was  almost 

full-time  at  Arts  and  Crafts  for  a  few  years.   Then  he  and  Spencer 

quarrelled.   I  don't  really  know  what  it  was  about;  all  I  know  is 

what  Otis  reported  to  me,  which  was  that  he  was  in  Spencer's  office 

one  day,  and  he  showed  him  something.   And  he  said,  "Can  you  do 

that?" 

And  Otis  said  contemptuously,  "I  make  it;  I  don't  fake  it." 

Almost  as  bad  as  Benny  Bufano  saying  to  Lee  Randolph:   "I  don't 

know  about  Lee  Randolph.   If  you're  a  painter,  I'm  a  banana 

peddler." 
DuCasse:    Oh,  dear!   How  artists  love  to  ruffle  up  the  feather  of  fellow 

artists.  My  father  did  it  all  the  time. 
Oldfield:   I  know.   That's  why  I'm  telling  you.   I  don't  know  whether  it 

should  be  for  publication  or  not,  but  they're  all  gone  now. 
DuCasse:    Oh,  certainly.   They're  all  gone.   It's  not  going  to  hurt 

anybody.   These  things  are  so  natural;  they're  so  much  a  part 

of  an  artist's  life  that  it  has  to  be  in  there. 
Oldfield:   Anyway,  Spencer  fired  him.   He  was  reluctant  to  be  fired.   He 

argued  with  Spencer  about  it.   But  Spencer  wouldn't  give  in. 

So  then  Otis  said,  "If  you  fire  me,  you'll  only  last  a  year  or 

two."  And  this  was  true. 
DuCasse:   Yes,  because  that  was  just  acting  at  a  moment  of  spitefulness, 

which  we  all  have.   He  should  have  swallowed  his  pride. 
Oldfield:  Yes,  we  all  have  it.   But  it  was  a  little  bit  contemptuous — it 

was  a  lot  contemptuous  of  Otis.   I'm  not  so  sure  he  didn't 


97 


Oldfield:   deserve  to  be  punished. 

DuCasse:   Well,  he  was  confident  of  what  he  could  do.   I  think  that  your 
peers  should  recognize  that  a  lot. 

Oldfield:   Of  course,  he  had  always  had  very  enthusiastic  backing  from  Spencer. 
I  guess  it  hurt. 

DuCasse:   He  probably  felt  that  he  had  the  confidence  of  the  man;  he  could 
say  what  he  felt. 

Oldfield:   Yes.  And  he  felt  that  he  was  being  unjustly  criticized,  and  that 
it  was  unfair  or  something — anyway,  I  don't  know.   That's  a  little 
story  of  Otis'  career  at  Arts  and  Crafts. 

DuCasse:   Did  he  do  any  teaching  after  that? 

Oldfield:   Only  private  teaching.   He  always  had  private  classes. 

DuCasse:   And  did  he  have  them  in  his  own  studio? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  in  his  own  studio.  After  we  moved  out  here.   But  we  had 

a  studio  on  Russian  Hill  where  he  had  classes  for  twenty  years, 
I  guess. 

DuCasse:   Was  that  when  you  were  living  on  Telegraph  Hill? 

Oldfield:   No,  we  lived  on  Russian  Hill  after  Telegraph  Hill.   He  never  had 
classes  in  his  studio  on  Telegraph  Hill,  primarily  because  there 
wasn't  room.   It  was  a  very  small  place  where  we  lived  there.   And 
he  never  was  willing  to  have  his  studio  away  from  home.   I  talked 
him  into  it  once;  I  thought  it  would  be  good  for  him  and  good 
for  me.   There  were  small  children  around  that  bothered  him,  and 
I  couldn't  keep  them  quiet.   One  of  them  told  me  the  other  day, 
he  used  to  come  out  to  the  back  door  and  yell,  "Keep  those  children 


98 


Oldfield:   quiet!   I'm  working." 

DuCasse:    [laughter]   That's  natural.   Do  you  remember  when  you  moved  from 
Telegraph  Hill? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  '37.   October  of  '37.  We  stayed  there  until  '60,  when  we 
bought  this  house.   That  was  twenty-three  years. 

Cravath:    Is  this  all  recording? 

DuCasse:    It's  all  recording.   It's  so  nice  and  quiet — 

Oldfield:   It's  going  to  be  very,  very  boring  to  listen  to. 

DuCasse:   No,  not  at  all!   All  these  things,  all  these  ideas  about  Otis 
and  the  things  he  did — you  never  know  when  something  will  be 
the  kind  of  information  that  somebody  else  is  trying  to  find. 
So  whatever  may  seem  trivial  to  you  might  not  be  to  someone  else. 

Cravath:   Last  week  did  we  discuss  our  nursery  school? 

Oldfield:   I  don't  think  we've  said  anything  about  it. 

DuCasse:   No,  we  shall  bring  that  in. 

Cravath:    I  think  that  was  a  most  important  institution. 

Oldfield:   Do  you  remember  the  years? 

Cravath:   Well,  let's  see — 

Oldfield:   I  remember  we  had  three  two-year-olds,  and  one  three-year-old 

between  us.   So  this  had  to  be  around  1930.   The  nursery  school — 
Ruth  and  I  got  together  to  try  to  help  each  other,  because  caring 
for  these  little  kids  was  pretty  time-consuming.   I  wanted  to  work, 
although  I  wasn't  doing  it  very  much.   I  had  found  that  I  had  a 
tendency  to  try  to  paint  when  I  put  the  children  down  for  a  nap, 
and  be  a  little  testy  with  them  when  they'd  wake  up  before  I  was 


99 


Oldfield:   ready  to  quit. 

So  we  decided  that  we  could  give  each  other  a  day  off  by  each 
one  of  us  taking  on  the  whole  job  one  day  a  week.   Ruth  would 
send  her  twins  over  at  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  right 
after  breakfast.   And  on  my  day,  I  took  my  two  to  her.   They 
would  play.  We  had  a  little  deck  on  the  back  of  our  little  flat 
on  Telegraph  Hill  where  we  had  a  little  sandbox  and  some  things 
for  the  children  to  do.   Then  I  would  take  them  for  a  walk  so  that 
they  got  some  good  exercise.   Come  back  and  put  all  four  of  them 
in  the  bathtub  together,  and  put  them  all  down  for  a  nap. 

Cravath:   After  lunch.   You  fed  them  first,  didn't  you? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  fed  them  first,  I  guess.   I  gave  them  lunch  first.   Then 
I  would  clean  up  the  faces  and  stuff  and  put  them  all  down  for  a 
nap. 

I  remember  Beth  was  a  thumbsucker.   Ruth  was  doing  everything 
she  could  to  stop  it.   You  know  they  don't  stop  it  at  all  anymore. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  no.   You  have  to  let  them  "do  their  thing." 

Oldfield:   So,  poor  little  Beth,  she  had  these  rings  around  her  fingers 

to  keep  her — mittens  at  one  time.   But  there  was  also  a  little 
metal  device.   It  was  like  rings  that  tied  around.   Those  rings 
made  callouses  on  those  poor  little  fingers.   But  I  put  them  on, 
and  I  put  the  mittens  on  mine. 

Cravath:    I  don' t  remember  this ! 

Oldfield:   You  don't? 

Cravath:    [laughing]   No! 


100 


DuCasse:        That  was   the   period,    though,   when  one   interfered    with   what   were 
considered  bad  habits, so  they  wouldn't  become  permanent. 


[end  tape  4,  side  A;  begin  tape  4,  side  B] 


DuCasse:   Now,  you  were  talking  about  pediatricians. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  the  pediatrician  warning  me  that  if  I  deviated  as 

much  as  ten  minutes  from  the  feeding  schedule,  I  would  give  my 
child  a  psychosis.   [laughter]   Of  all  the  crazy  things! 

DuCasse:   Which,  of  course,  nowadays  they're  thinking  that  that's  just  what 
you  were  doing!   You  can't  win! 

Oldfield:   The  result  was  that  I  had  one  child  who  has  a  feeding  problem 
because  of  this  rigidityYou  were  not  allowed  to  pick  your  baby 
up  if  it  cried.   What  a  horrible! — it's  a  marvel  that  the  children 
that  were  born  in  that  period  didn't  grow  up  more  psychotic  than 
they  did. 

Anyway,  I  had  a  lot  of  fun — 

Cravath:    I  did,  too. 

Oldfield:   And  the  dinner  table  and  luncheon  table  conversations  were  just 
killing  sometimes. 

DuCasse:   You'd  get  the  backlog  of  what  went  on  at  dinner  from  your  two 
children,  I  guess,  didn't  you? 

Oldfield:   No,  they  stayed  for  dinner.   They  had  lunch  and  dinner  and  were 
picked  up  just  in  time  to  go  home  and  go  to  bed.   It  was  a 
wonderful  day  for  the  one  who  was  off,  but  a  very  hard  day  for 


101 


Oldfield:   the  one  who  was  in  charge.   However,  we  survived  all  right. 

Cravath:    I  enjoyed  it. 

Oldfield:   And  I  enjoyed  it  too. 

DuCasse:   Let  Ruth  put  in  a  word  or  two  about  her  day,  now,  in  relation 
to  this.   Did  you  follow  pretty  much  the  same  schedule? 

Cravath:   Oh,  yes.   Helen,  you  brought  the  children  down  to  me,  and  I  used 
to  take  them  up  to  you,  right  after  breakfast,  you  see.   Then 
I  would  go  through  the  routine  of  bathing  them,  and  lunch,  and 
the  nap,  and  when  they  got  up  from  the  nap.   We'd  have  supper; 
they'd  play.   And  we'd  give  them  supper.   Otis  would  pick  the 
girls  up  after  supper. 

DuCasse:    I  think  that's  wonderful. 

Oldfield:   Just  take  them  home  and  put  them  to  bed. 

DuCasse:    So  you  had  one  full  day  each  that  you  could  really  do  your  own 
work  in. 

Oldfield:   And  it  was  a  full  day.   You  could  make  your  dental  and  doctor 

appointments  for  that  day  with  confidence,  know  that  you'd  have 
time  no  matter  what.   Of  course,  the  idea  was  to  free  each  of  us 

to  do  a  little  work.   I  don't  know  about  Ruth,  but  I  know  that  I 

did 

always  other  things  that  I  needed  to  do  so  badly  that  I  think  the 

time  got  mostly  filled  up  with  that. 

Do  you  remember  any  of  the  conversations  we  overheard,  Ruth? 

Cravath:   Yes,  I  remember  one  in  particular.   It  was  our  children  discussing 
what  their  fathers  did.   One  of  mine  said  that  their  Daddy  works 
in  a  bank.   I  think  it  was  Beth  who  said,  "Oh!   He  makes  money!" 
[laughter] 


102 


DuCasse:   Very  impure  to  the  child  of  an  artist! 

Cravath:   You  probably  remember  some,  more  than  I  do,  Helen. 

Oldfield:   I'm  trying  to  think.   I  don't  remember  any. 

DuCasse:    Except  that  they  did  have  very  interesting  conversations. 

Oldfield:   Yes.  And  largely  it  was  about  the  food,  which  one  of  mine  never 

liked,  no  matter  what  it  was,  and  one  of  Ruth's  would  always  eat, 

no  matter  what  it  was!   [laughter]   They  balanced  each  other  out. 
Cravath:    It  was  really  funny  when  it  came  to  dessert  time.   Helen's  little 

girls  didn't  go  much  for  dessert.   But  Sam  would  eat  all  his 

dessert,  and  then  he'd  move  on  toJaynes place,  and  eat  all  her 

dessert,  and  move  on  the  Rhoda's,  and  eat  all  her  dessert. 

Wasn't  that  the  routine? 
Oldfield:   Yes,  that  was  the  routine. 
DuCasse:   He  must  have  enjoyed  eating. 
Cravath:   Oh,  he  did.   Beth  didn't — whether  he  got  her  dessert,  I  don't 

remember.   But  I  remember  he'd  get  three  or  four  desserts. 
Oldfield:   They  were  awful  cute. 
DuCasse:   And  that  was  wonderful  for  those  children  to  have  that  companionship 

in  their  youth.   I'm  sure  they  were  good  friends  as  they  grew  up. 
Oldfield:   I  think  that  it  brought  them  close  together,  don't  you? 
Cravath:   Yes. 
Oldfield:   And  also  brought  me  very  close  to  Ruth's  children.   I've  always 

felt  as  though  her  children  were  like  mine  because  of  that  time. 

I  don't  know  how  long  we  managed  to  keep  this  up,  but  I  think 

it  was  a  year  or  more,  don't  you? 


103 


Cravath:   Oh,  yes. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  taking  them  for  walks,  all  four  of  them.   Sam  was  a 
bit  unpredictable,  so  I  held  on  to  his  hand,  much  as  he  hated 
it.   He  was  the  only  boy,  you  see,  and  he  was  treated  just  like 
a  little  girl,  and  I  suppose  that  bugged  him.   Although  I  don't 
remember  that  he  ever  said  anything,  except  that  he  didn't  want  to 
hold  my  hand. 

I  knew  that  my  two  were  trained ,  if  I  allowed  them  to  run  ahead 
of  me,  to  wait  when  they  came  to  a  crossing.   At  first  I  was 
not  sure  whether  Beth  would  or  not,  but  she  finally  convinced 
me.   She  would  run  ahead.   She  had  this  lovely,  clean,  straight 
hair,  which  was  cut  in  a  sort  of  a  dutch  bob.   When  she  would 
run,  it  would  bounce,  and  her  head  would  waggle  around  a  little 
bit:   she  was  just  like  a  rag  doll.   She  seemed  to  have  no  bones 
or  anything;  she  was  so  loose  and  moved  so  easily.   I  used  to 
love  to  watch  her . 

Cravath:   You  know,  I  don't  remember  that  I  took  them  for  walks.   Do  you 
remember? 

Oldfield:   I  don't  know  what  you  did!   [laughter]   I  know  that  I  did,  because 
I  felt  that  they  didn't  get  enough  exercise  on  that  little  deck 
that  I  had.   I  think  I  took  them  for  two  walks  every  time  I  had 
them.   Sometimes  we  would  go  up — it  was  before  the  Coit  Tower  was 
built,  and  there  was  a  sort  of  open  space  up  there,  and  some  ruins 
of  the  old  buildings  that  used  to  be  up  there,  and  outcroppings 
of  concrete — stuff  like  that — and  eucalyptus  trees,  and  gravely, 
open  earth.   I  let  them  dig  in  the  earth  with  their  fingernails 


104 


Oldfield:   and  make  little  houses  out  of  the  rocks.   They  played  around 
beautifully  there. 

I  used  to  take  them  for  at  least  one  walk  every  day  where  we 
would  go  up  and  down  Telegraph  Hill.   That  really  was  a  good 
workout,  you  know. 

Cravath:   Well,  they  had  them  walking  down  to  my  place.   But  you'd  come 
and  get  them  in  the  car  at  the  end  of  the  day. 

Oldfield:   I  don't  remember  the  details  of  that  very  much.  Maybe  they  went 
both  ways  in  the  car.   I  don't  remember  that.   I  remember  Sam 
Bell  coming  to  pick  yours  up,  and  I  think  that  he  walked  them  home. 
I'm  not  sure.   So  they  got  back,  too. 

Anyway,  I  was  doing  my  job  as  conscientiously  as  I  could,  and 
I  thought  they  needed  exercise  beyond  what  they  could  get  on 
that  little  deck.   It  was  rather  confining.   And  the  sandbox  was 
not  totally  satisfactory,  because  they  poured  it  in  each  other's 
hair  and  all  that  stuff.   [laughter]   That's  the  way  children  are. 

DuCasse:   You  mentioned  that  at  one  point  you  tried  to  get  Otis  to  rent 

a  studio  elsewhere  so  he  would  have  more  peace.   But  that  didn't 
work. 

Oldfield:   It  lasted,  I  think,  one  month.   He  allowed  me  to  persuade  him, 

and  he  rented  a  room  in  the  Monkey  Block.   He  took  some  canvasses 
down  there.  My  idea  was  that  I  create  a  husband  who  had  a  working 
day  routine,  instead  of  being  always  underfoot  and  always  needing 
to  have  everybody  conform  to  what  he  wanted.   I  thought  that  he 
ought  to  be  equal  to  taking  care  of  his  needs  for  himself.   I 


105 


Oldfield:   think  he  came  home  for  lunch,  however,  but  I  don't  remember 
for  sure  about  that. 

Anyway,  he  had  this  studio  for  about  a  month,  and  he  moved 
some  canvasses  down  there,  and  the  materials  he  needed  for  working. 
At  the  end  of  a  month,  he  couldn't  stand  it  anymore,  so  he  moved 
back.   That  was  the  end  of  that. 

Then  after  we  moved  to  Russian  Hill,  he  pre-empted  the  largest 
room  in  the  house  for  a  studio.   It  was  what  they  called  a  rail 
road  flat.   There  was  a  hall  that  went  all  the  way  from  the  front 
door  to  the  back.   Across  the  back  was  what  was  intended  to  be  a 
dining  room,  Italian  style.   A  sort  of  party  room.   It  was  the 
whole  back  of  the  house.   It  was  by  far  the  largest  room  that  we 
had.   It  had  built-in  cupboards  and  things  which  were  designed 
for  keeping  dishes  and  things,  and  he  made  use  of  those.   He 
moved  all  of  his  stuff  in  there. 

But  it  was  the  only  place  that  we  had  during  the  years  that 
we  lived  there  where  we  could  have  guests  for  dinner.   So  when 
we  wanted  to  have  guests  for  dinner,  we  had  to  move  the  easel  and 
his  stuff  aside  and  set  the  table  in  there.   The  only  other  possible 
place  was  the  kitchen,  and  this  was  not  a  very  gracious  place  to 
entertain  your  guests.   So  this  became  the  accepted  custom.   He 
got  used  to  it;  he  didn't  mind.   But  we  had  to  re-arrange  things 
when  we  did  that.   And  it  didn't  really  look  like  a  dining 
room,  because  there  was  paint  on  the  floor  and  all  that  stuff 
and  his  work  all  around. 


106 


DuCasse:   This  place  that  you're  living  at  now — is  that  where  you  had,  perhaps, 
a  little  more  convenience. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   What  happened  was  that  I  had  an  illness.   I  was  working, 
working  almost  full-time,  if  not  full-time  by  that  time — 

Cravath:   That's  when  you  were  teaching  at  Hamlin  School? 

Oldfield:   I  was  teaching  at  Hamlin,  and  I  think  only  at  Hamlin.   I  think 

it  was  after  I  stopped  teaching  at  St.  Rose.   I  stopped  teaching 
at  St.  Rose  because  my  arthritis  got  so  bad  that  I  couldn't 
negotiate  those  stairs.   You  remember  the  classrooms  that  we 
had  were  on  the  top  floor.   Going  up  was  difficult,  and  coming 
down  was  worse. 

DuCasse:   Did  you  teach  at  St.  Rose's  before  Ruth  did? 

Cravath:   Yes,  we  did.   She  taught  sewing. 

DuCasse:   You  both  taught  there  at  the  same  time? 

Oldfield:   I  taught  sewing  in  the  same  room  that  Ruth  had  a  sculpture  class 
in.   I  tried  to  pick  up  all  the  needles  and  pins,  but  they  were 
always  getting  pins  or  needles  in  the  clay.   So  it  wasn't  really  a 
very  good  combination.   But  anyway,  we  got  along  all  right. 

Eventually  I  had  to  give  up  teaching  at  St.  Rose,  although  I 
liked  it  very  much.   While  I  was  there,  they  tried  to  persuade  me 
to  take  on  a  typing  class.   I  remember  I  told  Sister  Leonard,  who 
was  the  principal,  that  I  didn't  know  anything  about  typing.   I 
was  a  peck-and-hunt  typist.   She  said,  "Oh,  you  don't  need  to 
know  anything;  just  buy  a  book."   [laughter]   They  certainly  didn't 


107 


Oldfield:   think  very  much  of  typing. 

DuCasse:    It  was  probably  just  one  of  those  necessity  things  that  they 
put  into  the  curriculum. 

Oldfield:   There  was  a  nun  who  had  been  teaching  it,  you  see,  and  something 
happened  so  she  couldn't  do  it  anymore.   I  was  there;  I  guess  at 
that  time  maybe  I  was  the  only  lay  teacher  that  was  there.   Anyway, 
I  didn't  want  to  do  it  because  I  knew  I  was  not  competent.   I  didn't 
know  anything  about  typing;  I  never  learned  to  type,  except  peck-and- 
hunt. 

DuCasse:   We've  digressed  slightly,  which  is  fine.   It  was  after  the  move 
to  Joost  Street,  where  there  was  more  space  for  Otis  to  work. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   I  was  talking  about  my  illness.   I  had  had  a  bad  afternoon 
at  school;  I  remember  that  I  had  had  to  excuse  myself  from  my 
class  to  go  to  the  bathroom  and  vomit.   I  was  feeling  very  sick 
when  I  got  home,  and  also  had  a  pain  in  the  tummy.   So  Otis 
reminded  me  afterwards  that  when  I  got  home  I  had  said  to  him, 
"I  have  classic  symptoms  of  appendicitis."  I  had  never  had  any 
such  symptoms  before  in  my  life,  and  really  didn't  believe  it 
was  appendicitis,  but  I  knew  what  the  symptoms  were.   So  that's 
what  I  said  to  him.   I  went  to  bed  and  I  couldn't  eat.  A 
couple  of  days  went  by.   I  guess  it  was  a  weekend.   I  pampered 
myself  all  weekend. 

Finally  I  called  the  doctor  in  Oakland  who  was  treating  me 
for  arthritis.   I  told  him  about  my  symptoms.   He  said,  "Oh, 
you  probably  picked  up  a  flu  bug.   Take  some  Pepto-Bismol. "  Which 


108 


Oldfield:   I  did,  and  it  didn't  do  me  any  good  at  all.   Finally  the  pain  and 
the  nausea  were  so  great  that  I  was  just  moaning  and  groaning 
around  there.   So  Otis  put  me  in  the  car  and  took  me  to  the 
surgeon,  who  was  the  only  doctor  we  really  knew  very  well  at  that 
time.   He  didn't  know  what  was  wrong  with  me,  but  he  gave  me  a 
shot  for  the  pain  and  ordered  me  into  the  hospital. 

I  was  in  the  hospital  for  two  or  three  days,  where  I  was 
checked,  and  tested,  and  they  had  discovered  that  I  was  not 
running  a  temperature,  that  I  didn't  have  an  elevated  white  count. 
They  had  no  idea  that  I  had  an  infection.   Finally,  they  took  me 
in  for  exploratory  surgary.   I  think  that  the  doctor — he  didn't 
tell  me  so — he  probably  thought  that  I  had  a  growth  in  the  uterus. 
But  it  turned  out,  by  the  time  I  got  into  surgery  that  it  was  a 
ruptured  appendix. 

So  I  stayed  in  the  hospital  for  quite  a  lon£  time.   I  remember 
they  shot  me  full  of  penicillin  all  day  and  all  night.   I  came 
through  it.   When  I  got  home,  the  building  where  we  had  been 
living  for  the  last  twenty  years  had  been  sold,  and  the  people  who 
had  bought  it  were  starting  remodeling  procedures.   They'd  cut 
holes  in  the  walls,  put  in  a  central  heating  system,  and  they 
were  putting  in  complete  copper  plumbing,  and  the  plumbers  were 
hammering  and  banging — I  was  just  out  of  the  hospital!   It  was 
a  ghastly  affair. 

Our  children  thought  that  they  should  try  to  help  at  this 
juncture.   They  were  living  in  this  neighborhood,  and  they 


109 


Oldfield:   brought  us  out  here.   The  agent  that  they  knew  showed  us  this 
little  house,  and  Otis  fell  for  it  immediately  because  the 
garage  had  been  turned  into  a  room  where  he  could  make  a  studio. 
He  didn't  care  about  anything  else  at  all.   But  he  saw  a  possible 
studio.   So  he  said  it  was  fine.   He  never  stopped  complaining 
about  that  converted  garage  in  later  years.   But  he  was  responsible 
for  our  buying  it  and  our  choosing  it,  because  I  didn't  think  it 
was  an  adequate  studio.   I  was  feeling  so  ill  anyway  I  probably 
didn't  think  much  of  anything. 

So  we  made  an  offer  of  quite  a  bit  less  than  the  asking  price, 
and  it  was  accepted.   First  thing  I  knew  we  had  bought  a  house 
and  we  were  moving  out  here.   I  came  home  from  the  hospital  the 
end  of  February,  and  we  moved  in  here — no,  it  wasn't  the  end  of 
February.   It  must  have  been  the  middle  of  February.   We  moved  in 
here  the  first  of  March,  1960. 

\ 

Cravath:   That  was  a  good  move. 

Oldfield:   I  have  been  very  comfortable  here.   It's  a  nice,  comfortable 
little  house.   And  I  had  more  conveniences,  which  I  had  never 
had  before.   But  Otis  never  stopped  complaining  about  it.   He 
used  to  look  out  at  the  view  and  say,  "Ugh.   Just  like  Los  Angeles." 
And  then  he  referred  to  it  as  "out  here  in  Siberia."  He  just 
hated  it. 

Cravath:   But  he's  the  one  who — 

Oldfield:   He  chose  it  because  he  saw  a  possible  studio,  and  that  was  all 
he  cared  about.   He  didn't  care  about  anything  else — about  the 


110 


Oldfield:   environment  we  lived  in.   That  was  my  problem.   So  that's  how  it 
happened . 

We  had  a  few  thousand  dollars  which  we  could  pay  down  on  it. 
The  people  who  wanted  to  sell  it,  I  guess  were  very  eager  to 
sell  it,  so  they  accepted  our  offer,  which  was  quite  a  bit  less 
than  they  were  asking.   So  we  moved  in,  and  I've  been  here  ever 
since. 

DuCasse:   Well,  it  certainly  is  charming  and  cheerful. 

Oldfield:   It's  comfortable  for  one  or  two  people.   It  isn't  very  big,  but 
it's  comfortable. 

DuCasse:    By  that  time,  of  course,  your  married  children  were  out  and  grown. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  both  of  our  daughters  were  married  by  this  time. 

DuCasse:    So  that's  good.   You  had  the  freedom  to  be  in  a  place  that  was 
just  for  the  two  of  you. 

Oldfield:   And  the  studio  is  a  comfortable  place  to  work.   I  still  work  in 
it,  and  I  think  it's  quite  nice? 

Cravath:   Have  you  been  in  it? 

DuCasse:    No,  I  just  looked  in  the  window. 

Oldfield:   After  Otis  died,  I  felt  that  the  use  of  that  studio  was  like  a 
riches.   I  had  never  had  one  before,  you  know.   He  was  used  to 
having  the  best  room  in  the  house  devoted  to  his  work  space.   So 
it  was  a  bit  of  a  come-down  for  him,  because  there's  no  plumbing 
in  it.   I  had  a  little  sink  put  in  after  I  started  working  in  it. 
He  had  to  come  in  to  wash  brushes  or  go  to  the  bathroom.   He  didn't 
like  that.   And  then  going  through  two  doors.   He  was  used  to  using 


Ill 


Oldfield:   the  family  bathroom  on  Russian  Hill.   But  it  didn't  mean  going  out. 
It  just  meant  walking  up  the  hall  a  little  bit. 

DuCasse:   What  we  would  like  to  also  ask  you  is  the  names  of  some  of  the 
artists  that  both  of  you  were  associated  with,  or  Otis  was 
associated  with,  during  those  years.   We've  spoken  about  Ralph 
Stackpole.   Were  there  any  others  in  that  early  period  in 
San  Francisco  after  his  return  from  Paris  that  he  was  particularly 
intimate  with,  or  that  he  had  friendships  with  or  dealings  with? 
Sometimes  these  are  interesting  facts  for  others.   For  instance, 
Piazzoni — he  must  have  known  Piazzoni. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  and  he  loved  Piazzoni.   Everybody  loved  Piazzoni.   Piazzoni 
was  influential,  I  think,  in  getting  him  his  first  opportunity 
to  teach  at  the  Arts  School . 

Cravath:   At  the  California  School  of  Fine  Arts? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  at  the  San  Francisco  Art  School.   I  remember  that  Otis  was 

fond  of  quoting  Piazzoni,  because  he  and  Piazzoni  had  a  conviction 
in  common  that  painting  portraits  or  doing  anything  that  was 
subject  to  the  approval  of  the  buyer  was  tantamount  to  prostituting 
your  art.   They  talked  about  it  a  lot,  anyway.   I  don't  know  how 
deep  the  conviction  was,  but  they  talked  about  it  a  great  deal. 
I  remember  that  Otis  was  fond  of  quoting  Piazzoni  as  saying,  "I'd 
sooner  take  the  plough!"  because  Piazzoni  had  a  small  farm  in  the 
Carmel  Valley  where  he  spent  a  lot  of  time.   He  would  sooner 
plough  that  land  in  order  to  make  a  living  than  to  accept  a  commission 
which  didn't  leave  him  in  full  control. 

DuCasse:   They  were  rugged  individualists,  weren't  they? 


112 


Oldfield:   I  think  that  this  kind  of  rigidity  is  out  of  favor  now.   I  judge 
that  it  is,  although  I  don't  have  any  very  specific  evidence  to 
po  int  to . 

DuCasse:    I  think  the  artist  now  has  really  to  work  in  many  different  fields 
in  order  to  earn  a  living.   In  that  period — 

Oldfield:   It  was  almost  all  that  was  open! 

DuCasse:   Yes,  that's  right.   Now  artists  are  not  as  rigid  about  it.   They'll 
work  at  anything  that  they  have  to  work,  as  long  as  they  can  keep 
up  their  own. 

Oldfield:   So  Piazzoni  was  a  close  friend.   I  think  his  closest  friend,  though, 
was  Rinaldo  Cuneo.   Rinaldo  and  Otis  shared  a  birthday.   They  were 
not  born  in  the  same  year,  but  they  were  born  on  the  same  day. 
So  all  the  way  back  to  very,  very  early  in  my  marriage — I  guess 
the  first  year  or  maybe  the  second — I  made  a  birthday  cake  for 
both  of  them.   I  remember  that  Otis  built  a  cardboard  form  which 
I  used  to  bake  these  cakes  in — I  guess  he  had  to  make  more  than 
one,  because  it  went  on  for  quite  a  few  years — it  was  in  the  shape 
of  a  crab.   So  I  made  crab  birthday  cakes  for  years  and  years  and 
years . 

DuCasse:    Is  that  because  they  were  Cancerians? 

Oldfield:   They  were  Cancerians. 

DuCasse:    I  have  two  grandchildren  who  were  both  born  under  the  sign  of 
Cancer.   I  understand  that. 

Cravath:   Two  boys? 


113 


DuCasse:    No,  one  boy  and  one  girl. 

Oldfield:   Do  you  understand  that  sign?   I  don't  think  I  ever  shall. 

DuCasse:   Well,  I  should  say  I'm  aware  of  some  of  the  characteristics  of 

the  sign. 
Oldfield:   For  years,  Otis  was  so  confident  of  his  sign,  and  so  denigrating 

of  mine  because  I'm  a  Virgo.   Whenever  he  got  mad  at  me,  he  would 

say,  "It's  that  damn  virgin!" 
DuCasse:   Well,  all  I  can  say  is,  we  have  our  problems  getting  along  with 

other  signs,  too,  don't  we? 
Oldfield:   So  for  years  I  felt  that  I  had  been  born  under  an  inferior  sign. 

Although  it  wasn't  my  fault,  it  was  just  the  way  it  turned  out. 

He  just  downgraded  my  sign  and  upgraded  his  until  he  got  the  message 

across.   It  lasted  for  quite  a  long  while. 

We  have  one  granddaughter  who  is  a  Virgo.   But  I've  got  a 

whole  flock  of  Scorpios.   One  of  my  daughters — 
DuCasse:    I'm  inundated  with  Aquarians. 
Oldfield:   I  love  Aquarians.   I  think  that's  a  wonderful  sign.   Of  course, 

I  don't  believe  in  any  of  this  stuff.   It's  kind  of  entertaining. 

It's  amusing.   Of  course,  you  have  something  to  blame  things  on  if 

you  need  it.   It's  something  to  talk  about. 

My  favorite  young  man,  who  has  become  related  to  me  by  marriage — 

he's  married  to  my  granddaughter — is  not  only  an  Aquarian,  but 

he's  a  Valentine.   He  was  born  on  Valentine's  day.   That's  La&r-ie. 
DuCasse:   We  spoke  earlier  of  Stackpole,  but  we  didn't  go  into  very  much 

detail. 


114 


Oldfield:   Oh,  I  told  you  about  their  meeting  in  Paris. 

DuCasse:   Later  on,  after  he  got  back  to  San  Francisco  and  they  renewed  their 
friendship,  they  were  also  good  friends. 

Oldfield:   They  were  also  good  friends.   In  fact,  Ralph  was  Otis'  best  man 
at  our  wedding. 

Cravath:   The  wedding  was  in  his  stoneyard. 

Oldfield:   The  wedding  took  place  in  his  studio.   And,  of  course,  we  were 
neighbors  on  Telegraph  Hill.   I  became  very  close  to  Ralph's 
second  wife,  Jeannette.   We  shared  babysitting  problems  and  were 
constantly  together.   We  also  developed  our  sewing  skills  together. 
We  were  so  close  together  in  actual  physical  space  that  we  were 
in  each  other's  houses  every  day. 

But  Otis'  personal  friendship  with  Ralph  was  not  as  close 
as  it  was  with  Rinaldo. 

Cravath:        I  didn't  remember   that. 

Oldfield:   Well,  you  might  not  even  have  been  aware  of  it,  dear,  because — 
I  noticed  it,  of  course.   We  did  spend  time  together.   A  few 
years  ago,  I  was  going  through  old  snapshots  in  Otis'  storage. 
He  loved  to  squirrel  things  away.   He  had  little  packets  of  things 
stored  in  cigar  boxes  and  such  up  on  the  top  shelf.   After  I 
started  using  the  studio,  I  wanted  to  know  what  was  there,  and 
also  clear  some  space  for  myself.   So  I  went  through  some  of  these 
things.   I  came  across  some  pictures  that  were  of  Ralph  and  Jeannette 
and  Otis  and  me  and  our  two  children  and  Francis  Stackpole  on  a 
beach  party. 


115 


Oldfield:   I  had  a  memory  of  the  day;  I  remember  being  on  the  beach  and  who 
was  there,  but  I  didn't  know  what  beach  it  was.   I  didn't  know 
whether  it  was  Rockaway,  or  what.   Anyway,  I  sent  copies  of  them 
to  Jeannette,  and  told  her  that  I  couldn't  remember  what  beach  it 
was.   She  wrote  back  immediately:   "Baker's  beach." 

DuCasse:    Isn't  that  funny?   I  was  going  to  say,  I'll  bet  it  was  Baker's 
beach . 

Cravath:   We  used  to  go  there  from  the  Art  School. 

DuCasse:    I  used  to  be  taken  there  as  a  child. 

Oldfield:   So  we  had  that  kind  of  a  friendship,  a  family  sort  of  friendship. 
But  Otis'  real  buddy  was  Rinaldo. 

Now,  let  me  see.   Who  else  was  around  here? 

DuCasse:   Maynard  Dixon? 

Oldfield:   No.   Otis  never  had  a  close  friendship  with  Maynard  Dixon. 

DuCasse:    But  they  had  met,  I  suppose. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  and  Otis  worked  for  Maynard.   When  he  was  getting 

established  in  San  Francisco,  Maynard  had  some  commissions  on 
which  he  needed  help.   He  employed  Otis  to  do  some  of  the  work. 
I  don't  know  what  it  was  or  what  happened  to  the  mural 


[end  tape  4,  side  B;  begin  tape  5,  side  A] 


DuCasse:    I'd  be  interested  in  the  fresco,  because  I  think  we  missed  that 


116 


DuCasse:   when  the  tape  stopped — the  fresco  technique.   Now,  was  that 
Maynard  who  was  most  interested  in  it,  or — 

Oldfield:   It  was  Otis.   And  the  reason  that  he  was  useful  for  Maynard  was  that 
Maynard  didn't  do  fresco  either — or  at  least  not  at  that  time. 
So  he  wanted  somebody  who  would  work  on  his  oil  murals.   Otis 
was  qualified  for  that,  and  also  Otis  needed  work.   He  was  trying 
to  establish  himself  here,  and  didn't  have  a  teaching  job  yet, 
and  was  living  very  frugally. 

He  used  to  go  to  the  cafes:   Elgin's,  and  Poppa  Coppa's.   At 
Bigin's  he  would  go  around  sketching  the  diners  at  the  tables, 
and  then  Bigin  would  pass  the  hat,  collect  a  few  dimes  and  nickels 
for  the  artist.   And,  of  course,  the  sketches  were  given  to  the 
patrons.   It  was  Columbus  Avenue  at  Adler  Place.   It  was  12  Adler 
Place — Bigin ' s . 

Now,  Poppa  Coppa's  was — where  was  it  at  first? — down  on 
Montgomery  Street,  I  think.   Then  it  moved  out  to  Spring  Street 
off  of  California.   I  remember  being  there  once  at  a  dinner  which 
had  been  given  by  Bill  Gerstle.   I  can't  remember  what  the  occasion 
was.   Anyway,  I  was  seated  next  to  Maynard  Dixon.   Across  the 
table  from  us  was  a  great  Russian  beauty  who  was  the  wife  of 
Archipenko — Madame  Archipenko.   Did  you  ever  meet  her? 

DuCasse:    I  did.   I  studied  with  him  for  a  summer. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   Well,  she  was  just  a  devastating  Russian  beauty.   I,  at 
the  time,  was  young,  and  I  guess  I  was  staring  at  her.   I  must 
have  been  staring  at  her,  because  Maynard  nudged  me  and  said, 
"Atta  girl,  kid.   Get  a  good  eyeful.   Genuwine  European  golddigger!" 


117 


DuCasse:    [laughter]   Oh,  great! 

Oldfield:   That  was  typically  Maynard,  too. 

DuCasse:   Was  Edith  Hamlin  on  the  scene  at  this  point? 

Oldfield:   No,  she  was  not.   This  was  before  her  time. 

Cravath:   This  was  while  Maynard  was  still  married  to  Dorothea  Lange 

Oldfield:   I  think  it  was  between.   I  don't  know  how  much  time  there  was 
between.   Dorothea  left,  you  know,  and  went  with  Paul  Taylor. 
I  think  it  was  at  a  time — I  don't  remember  the  year — right 
after  Dorothea  had  left  and  married  Paul  Taylor. 

Cravath:    I  think  it  was  around  1931. 

Oldfield:   Something  like  that,  yes. 

I  have  another  little  story  related  to  Maynard  Dixon,  and  this 
is  mostly  about  Otis.   When  Otis  first  knew  Maynard,  he  was  married 
to  Dorothea,  and  they  had  two  little  boys.   They  invited  Otis  to 
dinner. 

Cravath:   And  you,  too,  right? 

Oldfield:   No,  it  was  before.   This  was  while  Otis  was  working  for  Maynard. 

I  don't  know  whether  it  was  before  I  knew  him,  but  it  was  certainly 
before  I  married  him.   Anyway,  Otis  went  to  dinner,  and  Maynard 
showed  off  his  skills  as  a  father,  and  took  Otis  into  the  bedroom 
to  watch  him  diaper  one  of  the  babies.   Otis  was  terribly  disgusted; 
he  thought  this  was  just  awful !  So  demeaning  for  a  man  to  do  a 
thing  like  that.   And  this  was  the  man  that  he  had  respected  as  an 
artist!   He  was  so  disgusted.   I  got  this  from  Otis,  naturally, 
I  wasn't  there.   Then  he  said  to  me,  "In  Paris,  the  artists  don't 
have  children."  And  that  got  spread  around  the  whole  art  community, 


118 


Oldfield:   this  little  contemptuous  remark  of  Otis'.   And  when  Otis  married 

me  and  promptly  had  two  of  his  own,  he  had  to  take  a  lot  of  ribbing. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  I'm  sure  he  did.   [laughter] 

Oldfield:   It  happened  to  him  every  once  in  a  while,  because  he  was  also  fond 
of  saying:   "There's  one  thing  about  my  art:   it  doesn't  make  any 
noise."  Referring  to  musicians.   Then  when  he  got  a  trumpet  player 
for  a  son-in-law,  he  took  a  lot  more  ribbing.   He  called  those 
things  "boomerangs."  Came  back  and  hit  him. 

DuCasse:    I  think  the  visual  artist  very  often  feels  that  they  have  the 

advantage,  that  the  musician  really  has  to  create  too  much  sound. 
I've  heard  that  from  other  artists. 

Oldfield:   Well,  it's  not  only  sound,  they  feel  it's  performing  and  not  creating. 
They  don't  think  of  performing  as  creative.   They  have  more  respect 
for  composers  than  they  do  for  performers. 

But  anyway,  this  was  just  some  little  snide  remark  that  he 
liked  to  make.   He  made  it  once  to  Henry  Cowell  and  almost  got  in 
a  fight. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  I  can  believe  that!   He  knew  Henry  Cowell,  did  he? 

Oldfield:   Yes.   They  weren't  close  friends,  but  we  used  to  meet  at  parties 
a  great  deal.   I  remember  one  when  Cowell  performed,  and  had  the 
bad  judgment  to  come  over  and  ask  Otis  how  he  liked  it.   And  Otis 
came  out  with  his  famous  remark:   "One  thin£  about  my  art — it 
doesn't  make  any  noise."   And  there's  nothing  more  insulting  you 
could  say  to  a  musician  than  to  call  what  he  does  "noise." 

I  remember  Cowell  looked  at  him  and  said,  "If  you  were  a  little 
bigger,  I'd  wipe  up  the  floor  with  you." 


119 


DuCasse:   Unfortunately,  it  was  rather  true.   Cowell  made  a  lot  of  noise. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  made  a  lot  of  noise,  and  he  was  a  big  guy,  and  Otis  was 
very  small. 

DuCasse:   Let's  see  who  else  we  have  to  ask  you  about.   Nelson  Poole,  I 
think  you  said  you  and  Otis  might  have  known. 

Oldfield:   Yes.  We  knew  Nelson  and  Helen,  but  there  was  not  a  close  relation 
ship. 

DuCasse:   Can  you  think  of  anybody  that  you'd  like  to  talk  about? 

Oldfield:   I  can't  remember  his  name — the  other  fellow,  the  Frenchman  who  had 

Labaudt 
a  studio — Poulanc.   And  of  course,  Otis  and  Lucien  were  close.   They 

were  close,  although  there  was  a  certain  amount  of  rivalry  between 
them.   Otis  used  to  call  Lucien  a  "professional  Frenchman."   I  guess 
he  wanted  to  be  the  only  representative  in  the  group,  and  Lucien 
was  a  genuine  Frenchman.  Also  he  made  snide  remarks  about  his 
dressmaking. 

DuCasse:    I  think  my  father  looked  down  upon  Lucien  for  that  reason,  too. 

He  always  felt  that  that  wa1!0  really  "  bona  f idea-  f or  an  artist. 

Oldfield:   But  Lucien  did  everything  with  a  flair.   Much  later  in  my  life  I  met 
a  woman  who  had  gone  to  Lucien  to  have  a  gown  designed  and  made  for 
her.   He  had  said  to  her,  much  to  her  distress  (at  least  as  she  told 
it  to  me),  "Madame,  how  can  I  create  for  you  unless  I  see  you  nude?" 
She  was  not  prepared  for  this  at  all. 

Cravath:   That  was  Lucien? 

Oldfield:   That  was  Lucien. 

DuCasse:   He  believed  in  working  from  the  inside  out,  didn't  he? 


120 


Oldfield:   At  every  cocktail  party,  he  was  always  in  the  midst  of  anything  that 
was  going  on  that  was  a  little  bit  risque — if  that  word  is  suitable — 
I  don't  know.   For  instance,  there  was  one  girl — I  can't  remember 
where  it  was,  but  it  was  a  long,  long  time  ago.   There  was  a  girl 
who  was  bragging  that  she  could  stand  on  her  head.   And  Lucien 
said,  "I'll  hold  your  legs."   [laughter]   And  he  did! 

DuCasse:    That  was  right  up  his  alley! 

Oldfield:   That  was  right  up  his  alley. 

DuCasse:   You're  right,  he  had  flair. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  carried  it  off.   I'll  never  forget  the  last  time  I  saw  him: 
he  was  announcing  that  he  had  accepted  this  assignment  to  go  to 
Burma  with  the  Army  to  record  the — he  was  assigned  by  Life  magazine 
to  record  the  activities  of  the  Army  in  various  of  the  war  theaters. 
I  think  first  he  went  to  China,  Chunking. 

DuCasse:   He  also  went  to  India,  didn't  he? 

Oldfield:   Well,  he  was  killed  in  Burma.   He  was  on  his  way  from  China.   He 
spent  his  first  few  months  on  this  assignment  in  China  somewhere. 
He  threw  a  big  party  to  celebrate  his  departure.   He  had  an  Army 
uniform.   He'd  gotten  this  Army  uniform,  and  he  had  a  cobra  skin 
that  was  conspicuous  on  the  wall  of  his  studio  for  many  years.   So 
over  this  Army  uniform  he  had  draped  the  cobra  skin.   He  was  putting 
on  a  show.   He  had  a  wonderful  time  at  his  own  parties. 

So  he  told  about  how  he  was  going  to  do  this.   This  was  just  one 
of  my  memories  about  his  show-off  tendency.   And,  of  course,  he 
never  came  back.   He  was  on  his  way  from  Chunking — that  is  the  right 


121 


Oldfield:   name,  isn't  it,  of  that  capital? — and  the  plane  crashed  landing  in 

Burma,  and  he  was  killed,  and  all  of  the  work  that  he  had  accumulated- 
and  he  was  prolific,  it  must  have  been  an  awful  lot — was  destroyed 
in  the  wreck.   It  was  a  really  very  tragic  ending. 

But  he  went  out  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  he 
wouldn't  have  liked  that.   He  loved  to  be  conspicuous,  and  he 
would  do  almost  anything  to  get  the  attention.   Like  holding  up 
that  girl's  legs — I'll  never  forget  it.   She  was  in  a  cocktail 
dress,  and  in  those  days  they  were  pretty  short.   But  her  dress 
was  around  her  ears,  you  know,  it  went  right  up  when  she  stood 
on  her  head.   And  Lucien  was  there  holding  up  her  feet.   [laughter] 
I  would  like  to  have  a  photograph  of  that.   But  he  loved  it  in 
himself.   He  bragged  about  it. 

Cravath:    Somebody  should  have  made  a  cartoon  of  that  one. 

Oldfield:   Maybe  someone  did.   I  never  saw  it.   But  there  was  a  big  crowd  there. 
It  was  one  of  those  big  cocktail  parties.   I  used  to  get  terribly 
bored,  because  they  always  interfered  with  my  home  routine.   I  had 
to  find  a  babysitter,  and  someone  who  could  not  only  stay  with  my 
children  but  feed  them  their  dinner,  and  often  put  them  to  bed. 
By  the  time  the  cocktail  party  is  over,  your  own  dinner  has  been 
thrown  off  schedule  because  you've  eaten  a  lot  of  those  little 
sandwiches  and  had  a  couple  of  drinks,  and  I  didn't  feel  like 
going  home  and  cooking.   And  we  were  usually  too  poor  for  my  husband 
to  offer  to  take  me  out.   It  just  disrupted  the  day,  and  I  didn't 
really  like  them  very  much. 


122 


DuCasse:   Are  there  any  others  that  you  think  of  or  come  to  mind? 

Oldf ield :   I  mentioned  Poulanc  a  while  ago.   He  was  a  Frenchman,  and  Otis  was 
fond  of  him.  Most  of  their  conversation  was  in  French.   His  studio 
was  near  Nelson  Poole's.   I  know  they  used  to  spend  a  lot  of  time 
together  jabbering  in  French.   Apparently  they  agreed  on  a  lot  of 
the  hang-ups  that  Otis  had.   Whether  they're  hang-ups  or  not — I 
haven't  known  anyone  else — of  course,  he  and  Rinaldo  agreed  very 
well.  We  spent  a  lot  of  time  together  as  a  foursome.   I  remember 
at  one  period  Ethel  Cuneo  and  I  agreed  that  we  would  write  a  book 
about  what  it's  like  to  be  an  artist's  wife.   We  never  did  it,  but 
we  planned  it;  we  talked  about  it,  because  we  shared  an  awful  lot 
of  experiences.   But  it  never  got  to  the  point  of  being  put  down. 
In  fact,  I  think  it  was  because  Rinaldo  died.   He  died  rather 
prematurely.   He  got  cancer  and  he  died.   Ethel  was  absolutely 
destroyed  by  his  death  for  a  while.   But  she  got  over  it,  and  she 
married  someone  else,  and  left  the  area.   We  corresponded  for  many 
years,  but  after  a  while  it  gets  difficult.   Lives  have  drawn  apart, 
you  don't  see  each  other  at  all.   So  it  sort  of  petered  out. 
But  we  were  very  close  friends,  and  spent  lots  and  lots  of  evenings 
together,  sometimes  planned,  and  sometimes  just  unannounced  one 
or  the  other  would  drop  in.   We  would  spend  long  evenings,  Otis 
and  Rinaldo  talking  about  painting,  and  Ethel  and  I  talking  about 
what  it's  like  to  be  an  artist's  wife.   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   Were  Cuneo's  and  Otis's  ideas  about  painting  very  different? 

Oldf ield:   No,  they  seemed  to  agree  very,  very  well.   They  were  very  harmonious, 


123 


Oldfield:   Also,  Rinaldo  had  a  store  of  information  which  interested  Otis. 

He  had  been  born  in  San  Francisco  to  an  Italian  immigrant  family, 
and  had  grown  up  in  North  Beach,  and  known  Telegraph  Hill  when  it 
was  a  semaphore  station,  and  when  it  also  was  the  site  of  this 
castle — somebody's  castle,  where  they  had  jousting  matches.   Oh,  he 
had  a  lot  of  very  interesting  lore  to  talk  about  about  the  days 
when  he  was  a  kid. 

When  he  was  eighteen,  he  joined  the  Navy.   He  had  an  enormous 
collection  of  tatoos.   He  learned  tatooing.   He  tatooed  all  his 
shipmates  when  he  was  in  the  Navy  himself.   Also,  he  had  been  an 
amateur  boxer,  starting  in  the  times  when  these  jousting  matches 
took  place  on  Telegraph  Hill.   He  participated  in  some  boxing 
matches  at  the  same  time,  or  shortly  after.   But  he  joined  the 
Navy  at  eighteen,  and  he  was  in  the  Spanish-American  War.   He  was 
a  little  older  than  Otis.   I  don't  think  it  was  as  much  as  ten 
years,  but  it  was  nearly  that  much.   Maybe  it  was  more  than  ten 
years,  because  the  Spanish -American  War  was  1890,  wasn't  it? 

DuCasse:    Eighteen  ninety-eight,  I  think. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   Otis  was  born  in  1890,  and  Rinaldo  was  eighteen  at  the  time 
of  the  war . 

DuCasse:    It  if  was  1898,  if  my  memory  serves,  he  was  about  ten  years  older. 

Cravath:   Helen,  did  Otis  know  Moya  Del  Pino  very  well? 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes.   This  was  through  Helen,  because  we  knew  Helen,  who  was 
then  Helen  Horst. 

Cravath:   She  was  one  of  Otis's  students. 


124 


Oldfield:   She  was  one  of  Otis'  students.   She  and  her  sister  used  to  come  to 
that  studio  where  he  had  his  first  private  class,  in  Leidesdorf 
building.   Carol  Wirtenberger  and  Clifford  White.   They  would  be 
delivered  and  picked  up  by  the  family  chauffeur.   So  they  were  a 
bit  conspicuous,  because  always  before  the  class  was  over  would 
come  this  knock  on  the  door,  and  a  very  polite  voice  saying,  "I've 
come  for  the  Misses  Horst."  They  would  feel  they  had  to  leave, 
because  they  knew  their  mother  had  sent  the  driver  for  them.   She 
didn't  want  them  out  any  longer  than  that.   This,  of  course,  was 
where  I  first  met  them.   But  then,  later,  after  Otis  and  I  were 
married,  they  used  to  come  to  the  studio  in  the  Montgomery  Block 
for  private  lessons,  not  only  in  painting  but  also  in  bookbinding. 
So  I  got  to  know  them  very  well  there. 

Then  we  moved  to  the  little  flat  on  Telegraph  Hill.   Helen  used 
to  come  up  there  almost  every  day,  as  I  remember  it.   I  remember 
she  drove  a  great  big  Packard — what  did  they  call  it — roadster, 
because  it  had  a  convertible  top  which  was  always  down.   And  she 
had  an  eggbeater  on  the  radiator  that  turned  in  the  breeze.   Her 
boyfriends  used  to  come  up  and  leave  bouquets  of  violets  and  things 
in  our  mailbox,  and  I  got  to  know  a  lot  of  her  boyfriends. 

Eventually,  she  met  Moya.   And  Moya  was  working  for  that — what 
was  the  name  of  that  decorator  who  had  the  boat  in  Sausalito? — 
lived  on  a  boat — this  was  in  the  twenties.   He  was  well  known;  he 
was  a  decorator.   I  think  it  was  the  barque  Echo  that  he  had.   He 
had  it  all  painted  up  in  black  and  white  design. 


125 


Oldfield:   Anyway,  Moya,  when  he  first  came  to  San  Francisco,  was  an  unknown 
Spaniard.   He  had  worked  for  an  interior  decorator  in  Spain.   He 
had  a  lot  of  funny  stories  to  tell  about  that.   Do  I  have  time  to 
repeat  one  of  them? 

DuCasse:    Certainly. 

Oldfield:   He  told  about  this  fellow  that  he  worked  for  having  bought  the 

furnishings  of  a  house  which  had  been  sold  off  by  the  heirs  to  an 
estate.   The  man  who  was  employing  got  everything — paintings, 
furniture,  everything.   And  Moya,  while  he  was  employed  by  him, 
learned  to  decorate  furniture,  refinish  furniture,  and  make 
paintings.   Of  course,  he  was  already  trained  as  an  artist,  but 
he  did  whatever  the  boss  wanted.   One  day  this  fellow  brought  in 
the  things  that  he  had  acquired  from  an  estate.   Among  the  paintings 
was  a  picture  of  a  priest — a  bust — a  small  painting  of  a  priest. 
Moya's  employer  said  to  Moya,  "It's  a  nice  face  on  this.   Take  it 
over  to  the  Prado  and  copy  a  uniform  from  a  Goya  onto  that  face." 
So  Moya  did,  and  brought  it  back,  and  it  was  fine;  it  was  just 
like  a  Goya.   Someone  came  in  to  the  place  of  business  and  saw  this 
painting  and  identified  it  as  a  Goya,  and  the  fellow  who  was  offering 
it  for  sale  said,  "No,  that's  not  a  Goya;  that's  a  painting  that 
has  been  painted  from  a  Goya  that's  in  the  museum.   That's  not 
an  original  Goya."  But  the  fellow  thought  that  he  was  just  trying 
to  get  out  of  selling  it  to  him. 

So  he  went  and  did  more  research,  and  brought  proof  that  this 
was  a  Goya,  and  insisted  on  buying  it.   So  eventually  he  bought  it. 


126 


Cravath: 

Oldfield: 
Cravath : 
Oldfield: 


Oldfield:   Moya,  many  years  later,  was  in  the  National  Museum  in  London,  and 

saw  his  painting  as  a  Goya.   That's  a  silly  little  thing. 
DuCasse:    I  know,  but  these  are  what  is  wonderful  to  hear.   No  one  else  would 

know  these  except  someone  who  could  talk  to  it  at  that  time. 

That's  very  interesting. 

I  remember  the  last  time  I  saw  Moya  was  when  I  went  over  to  be 

with  Otis  after  he  was  ill. 

Over  to  Ross. 

Yes,  because  Helen  and  I  were  close  friends  and  we  had  more  in 
common  than  meets  the  eye  here,  because  our  ancestors  had  been 
associates.   My  father  was  a  hop  grower,  and  Helen's  father  was 
a  hop  broker.   In  my  childhood,  I  used  to  come  to  San  Francisco 
with  my  father  and  go  to  the  Horst  Brothers'  office  on  lower 
California  Street,  where  my  father  would  get  his  checks  and  things 
like  that.   So  the  name  of  Horst  was  familiar  to  me,  long  before 
I  knew  Helen. 

We  remained  close  friends  until  her  death. 

DuCasse:   Did  she  continue  her  art? 

Oldfield:  She  was  always  very  interested,  but  she  always  felt  that  her  gift 
was  minor,  and  that  she  needed  someone  behind  her  to  push  her  all 
the  time. 

Cravath:    She  worked  in  my  class  for  a  while,  but  she  was  very  modest. 

Oldfield:   She  was  very,  very  modest,  and  very,  very  retiring. 

Cravath:    She  was  talented;  she  could  have  if  she'd  really  wanted  to. 


127 


Oldfield:   She  did  a  lot  of  bookbinding.   In  fact,  I  remember  one  of  her 

close  school  friends  was  about  to  be  married,  and  she  wanted  to 
make  an  especially  nice  gift  for  her.   So  she  had  Otis  help  her, 
supervise  her,  and  help  her  make  a  little  parchment  book,  which 
contained  an  illuminated  and  hand-lettered  version  of  the  marriage 
ceremony — the  traditional  one.   It  was  all  done  and  illuminated  on 
parchment,  and  bound  in  a  little  white  parchment  missal.   Anyway, 
it  was  a  totally  dedicated  work,  because  every  bit  of  it  was 
painstakingly  produced  by  hand.   Otis  had  some  experience  with 
manuscript  illumination  and  lettering.   So  he  just  sort  of  held 
her  hand  while  she  was  producing  this  thing.   She  finished  it 
finally.   She  finished  it  and  gave  it  to  the  friend  as  a  wedding 
gift. 

So  during  those  days,  we  spent  a  lot  of  time  together  and 
became  very  close  friends.   When  Helen  married  Moya,  this  just 
increased  the  interest  that  we  had  in  each  other,  I  guess.  We 
saw  each  other  very  regularly,  and  were  very  fond  of  each  other. 
It  was  very  distressing  to  Otis  and  me  when  Moya  became  ill. 
Well,  it's  always  difficult  to  watch  someone  go  through  the 
decline. 

DuCasse:   He  was  not  that  old,  was  he,  when  he  became  ill? 

Oldfield:   No,  but  he  was  in  his  sixties.   No,  he  wasn't.   I  think  he  was 
about — he  was  just  past  seventy  when  he  died. 

Cravath:   Moya  was  younger  than  Otis,  or  older? 

Oldfield:      A  few  months  older.      Very  close   to   the  same  age.        I   don't 
remember  his   birthday. 


128 


DuCasse:   No,  it's  just  interesting.   So  often  age  does  not  really  matter, 

when  you  have  something  like    art   as    a   common   bond. 
Cravath:        They  don't  ever   think  of  age. 


[end  tape  5,  side  A;  begin  tape  5,  side  B] 


DuCasse:   We  were  talking  about  those  artist  friends  who  were  very  much 
a  part  of  your  life.   You  remember  now  the  ones  that  we  just 
reviewed,  and  maybe  you  want  to  add  some  others  that  we  haven't 
gotten  into.   Remember  we  talked  of  Maynard  Dixon,  and  Lucien 
Labaudt,  and  Poulanc,  Moya  Del  Pino,  and  Helen.   Were  there 
any  others  that  you  can  think  of? 

Oldfield:  I  don't  think  of  any  others.  I  think  that  I  mentioned  all  that 
were  close  to  us  at  that  period.  Then  there  was  a  later  period, 
when  there  was  a  younger  group. 

DuCasse:   What  time  would  that  have  been? 

Oldfield:   That  would  have  been  in  the  forties  and  fifties. 

DuCasse:   Do  you  want  to  specify  some  of  those? 

Oldfield:   The  first  name  that  comes  to  my  mind  is  Nathan  Oliviera.   He 
was  Otis'  student  at  Arts  and  Crafts.   That's  where  they  met. 
Nathan  and  Mona  used  to  come  to  our  studio  on  Russian  Hill  quite 
regularly.   They  were  very  fond  of  each  other.   After  Otis  died, 
Nathan  was  instrumental  in  arranging  a  show  for  him  at  Charles 
Campbell  Gallery. 


129 


Cravath:   Was  that  one  the  only  show  of  Otis's  work  there? 

Oldfield:   Yes.   That  was  the  only  show, 

DuCasse:    It  was  a  sort  of  a  retrospective,  then,  after  his  death. 
Do  you  remember  the  date,  or  at  least  the  year  of  that? 

Oldfield:   It  was  '76.    I've  had  one  other  show  of  Otis'  work,  which  was 

sort  of  a  memorial  show  at  the  Labaudt  Gallery.   That  was  in  '72. 
I  haven't  managed  to  arrange  any  other  showings.   It's  really 
too  much  of  an  undertaking,  you  know.   Coping  with  framing,  and 
transportation.   It  has  been  suggested  a  number  of  times  that  I 
try  to  arrange  a  show  at  the  Crocker  Art  Gallery  in  Sacramento, 
because  Sacramento  was  his  home  town,  you  know.   But  nothing's 
ever  come  of  that,  largely  because  of  my  own  indolence.   It 
scares  me,  the  thought  of  trying  to  do  it.   So  that  hasn't  gotten 
off  the  ground  at  all . 

DuCasse:    If  someone  in  Sacramento  could  instigate  that,  and  do  the  work. 

Oldfield:   I  have  a  friend  up  there  who  would  instigate  it  as  far  as  the 

gallery  is  concerned,  but  I  still  would  have  to  handle  the  pictures, 
see  that  they  were  properly  framed,  and  arrange  transportation. 
And  that's  ninety  miles;  it's  a  tremendous  job.   I  just  falter  when 
I  think  of  it. 

Cravath:   Would  Jane  be  interested  in  doing  that,  Helen? 

Oldfield:   She  might.   It's  very  interesting  about  Jane.   What  she  does  is 

try  to  prevent  me  from  being  foolhardy.   And  she  is  always  terribly 
concerned  about  proper  insurance,  about  transportation  hazards,  and 
she  would  want  all  kinds  of  guarantees  which  places  like  that 
museum  are  not  about  to  provide.   Of  course,  I'll  suggest  it  to  her 


130 


Oldfield:   again.   I  haven't  suggested  the  idea  of  a  show  in  Sacramento  for 

a  long  time.   But  I'll  mention  it  to  her  again  and  see  how  she 

reacts.   She  would  have  to  do  all  that  hard  work  which  scares  me. 

She  would  if  she  didn't  think  that  there  might  be  hazards  connected 

with  it  that  would  be  foolish  to  risk. 
DuCasse:    I  was  thinking  of  maybe  a  hundredth  anniversary  or  something,  a 

centennial  kind  of  thing. 
Oldfield:   He  was  born  in  1890.   His  centennial  won't  be  until  1990.   That's 

quite  a  ways  off. 
DuCasse:   When  we  did  Marty's,  we  missed  his  by  a  few  years,  but  by  a  few 

years  later.   It  would  have  been  1869,  but  the  museum  just  barely 

opened.   They  had  his  retrospective  in  1974. 
Oldfield:   I  have  the  catalogue  on  it. 
DuCasse:    Isn't  that  a  beautiful  catalogue?  That  is,  incidentally,  out  of 

print.   They  are  thinking  of  possibly  trying  to  have  it  reprinted. 

I  have  two  copies  left,  and  that's  all  there  is. 
Oldfield:   I  have  one,  in  case  you  ever  feel  terribly  pressed  and  need  to 

know  where  these  is  another  one.   I  want  to  keep  it,  but  I  just 

wanted  you  to  know  that  if  you  come  against  a  real  problem,  that 

you  know  where  there  is  another  one. 
DuCasse:   Thank  you.   That's  very  interesting  about  Nathan  Oliviera,  because 

he's  a  very  well  respected  artist  in  the  area  now.   It's  nice  to 

know  the  connection  with  Otis. 
Oldfield:   Of  course,  before  he  left  the  San  Francisco  school,  the  now  San 

Francisco  Art  Institute,  he  had  several  other  names  who  have  been 


131 


Oldfield:   quite  well  known  as  students:   Diebenkorn  and  Hassel  Smith  are  two 
that  I  can  remember.   Both  of  them  departed  considerably  from  his 
ideas  as  their  fame  grew. 

DuCasse:    But  they  had  both  studied  with  him. 

Oldfield:   They  had  both  studied  with  him. 

DuCasse:   Well,  they  certainly  did  depart.   There's  no  doubt  about  that. 
But  whatever  they  had  learned  I'm  sure  contributed  to  what  they 
eventually  did. 

Oldfield:   When  Otis  first  came  to  San  Francisco,  he  was  considered  very  far 

out.   The  newspapers  referred  to  him  with  such  phrases  as  "the  artist 
with  the  flaming  pallette"  and  all  kinds  of  things  like  that.   But 
he  never  really  wanted  to  express  himself  in  a  totally  abstract  way. 
He  didn't  mind  breaking  down  images  into  semi-abstract  or  nearly 
abstract  forms  or  components,  but  he  didn't  ever  like  the  idea  of 
starting  with  a  blank  canvas  and  just  putting  shapes  on  it  without 
connection  with  any  physical  object. 

So  at  the  time  that  the  abstract-expressionist  movement  became 
dominant  in  San  Francisco,  he  was  totally  outside  it.   That  was 
what  I  meant  when  I  said  that  for  a  while,  his  painting  was  in  the 
mainstream.   But  then  in  the  years  I  think  beginning  sometime  in  the 
forties  and  coinciding  with  the  time  when  he  was  no  longer  teaching 
at  the  art  school  in  San  Francisco,  his  style  began  to  decline. 
He  had  maybe  ten  or  fifteen  years  when  he  was  riding  the  crest  of 
the  wave.   It  seemed  a  short  time,  but  it  was  crammed  full,  the  time 
that  he  did  have.  After  that,  he  felt  himself  considered  "old  hat." 


132 


DuCasse:   Marty  was  in  that  same  position. 

Oldfield:   And  he  resented  it  intensely. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  of  course.   I  think  they  both  very  rightfully  did. 

Oldfield:   Especially  since  his  ideas  had  been  so  avant-garde  when  he  first 
came,  you  know,  and  pronounced  so  by  all  the  people  who  knew  him. 

DuCasse:       it  shows  also  how  fast     change  comes  and  goes. 

Oldfield:   How  fast.   That  is  the  thing  that  appalls  me. 

DuCasse:   The  whole  mood  of  art  changed,  say,  between  1920  and  1940.   It 

was  a  revolution  in  this  country.   Men  like  Marty  and  Otis  who  had 
been  so  well  schooled  and  so  well  trained  and  so  disciplined  just 
were  not  interested  in  playing  around.   That's  what  they  had  done 
in  their  youth. 

Oldfield:   This  was  the  time  when  people  like  Sam  Francis  came  along. 

DuCasse:   Are  these  pictures  over  here  of  him? 

Oldfield:   No,  he  was  someone  that  I  knew  slightly  because  he  lived  across 

the  street  from  me  for  a  while,  and  I  knew  the  woman  from  whom  he 
rented  a  room. 

Cravath :   Was  that  on  Union? 

Oldfield:   On  Union  Street,  yes. 

DuCasse:    I  think  we  got  that  in  the  last  tape. 

Oldfield:   I  think  it's  in  there  somewhere.   She  told  me.   She  was  the  one 
who  told  me  about  taking  him  in  when  he  got  out  of  the  army.   He 
was  undecided  as  to  what  he  was  going  to  do  with  his  life,  and 
enrolled  at  the  Art  School.   Of  course  it  was  just  the  right  time 
for  him. 


133 


Oldfield:   This  is  the  way  it  goes:   so  much,  it  seems  to  me,  that  happens 
to  artists  and  to  other  creators,  too,  I'm  sure,  is  dependent 
on  fad  and  accident.   The  things  that  happen  in  the  world,  and  the 
moods.   They  can  just  play  havoc,  or  they  can  give  such  a  boost 
that  it's  phenomenal,  and  sometimes  seems  rather  unwarranted. 
But  that's  not  for  me  to  decide. 

DuCasse:   True.   Fortunately,  as  things  settle,  and  time  goes  on,  we  begin 
to  get  more  perspective.   Now,  they  are  beginning  to  appreciate 
the  key  men  who  contributed  to  this  development  in  California. 
So  Marty  and  Otis  and  all  of  their  group  are  going  to  gradually 
come  into  their  own  and  they're  going  to  be  looked  upon  as  key 
men  of  importance. 

Oldfield:   That's  what  we're  hoping  for. 

DuCasse:    So  thank  goodness  for  that. 

Oldfield:      Yes,    thank  goodness.      It   doesn't  every   stay   the  same  for  very 
long. 

DuCasse:        And   it's   almost   as    if   the  younger  artists  were  painting   themselves 
into  a  corner.      They're  getting  so   completely  apart   from  everything 
that  they're  going   to  have   to   change.      They're   going  to  have   to   start 
back. 

Oldfield:   Otis  liked  the  idea  of  being  an  ivory  tower  artist.   He  didn't  want 
to  go  with  the  trend  of  the  times;  he  was  stubborn  about  that. 
That  was  one  of  his  reasons  for  not  joining  the  crowd,  I  guess. 
But  it  was  also  convictions,  of  course,  which  were  more  deep-seated 
than  that. 


134 


DuCasse:        That's    interesting  about  his   thoughts,   because   those  are  some  of   the 
things  we  were  hoping  to   fill   in  in  case  we  hadn't  touched  on  them 
before.      Did  he  say  anything?      I  mean,    do  you  remember  some  of   the 
things  he  said  about   twentieth   century  art   in  general,   or  any  of   the 
"isms?"     Did  he  have  strong  opinions? 

Oldfield:      He   felt   that  total  abstraction  had  no   concept. 

DuCasse:        He's   right.      Even  Kandinskjgaid  that.      But   the  other  men  thought 
they  could  get  around   that. 

Oldfield:     Well,    they   still   do,    I  guess.      They're  still   trying.      I  don't 
totally  agree  with   it;    I  think  there's   concept   in  abstract 
expression.      But   it's  not   the  same   thing   that  he  considered 
concept. 

DuCasse:        What  he  was   thinking  of  maybe  was   that   it's  non-objective. 

Non-objective  art   is  a  little  different   from  abstract,   because  you 
abstract   from  something. 

Oldfield:      Yes,    that's   right.      I   think  non-objective — although  Kandinsk\^ic* 
things   that  were  almost   totally  non-objective. 

I  know  that  a  lot  of  other  people  have  done  it  too.  In  fact, 
I  enjoy  working  in  that  idiom  myself.  I  like  just  patterns,  and 
value  and  form.  I  remember  Marty  coming  up  behind  me  when  I  was 
in  his  painting  class,  and  he  would  say  [huskily],  "Where's  the 
value?  Where's  the  proportion?  Where's  the  'eenfeeneeteesimal' 
plane?"  [laughter]  As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  he  got  through,  I 
didn't  think  there  was  anything  there  at  all!  [laughter] 

DuCasse:   Then  you  had  to  start  all  over  again. 


135 


Oldfield:      Yes.      Well,   he  would  keep  us  working  for  so   long  on  trying  to   find  a 
subject.      Especially  when   it  was   a  model,    and  the  school  was   paying 
the  model's   fee,    and  something  had   to   come  out  of  this.      I  knew   I 
had  worked  until   there  wasn't  any  point   in  doing  anything  more 
sometimes.      I  was   an  obedient   student,    and   I  would  go  on  and   try   to 
find  something. 

DuCasse:        You  see,    this   is   the  wonderful   thing  about  both  Marty  and  Otis, 

that   they  had  a  deep  grounding   in  the  beauty  of  reality.      To   them 

it  would  have  been  pointless   to   try  and  depart   too   far  from  that. 

It's   sad,   but   the  younger  generation  of  artists   are  wallowing 

around,    really  trying  to   come  back  to   that.      They're  having  a  hard 

time  doing   it. 

Are  they  really  trying? 

They  are.   You  remember  the  figurative  movement  was  a  return  "to  reality, 

Yes,  but  that  was  quite  a  while  ago. 

That  was,  but  you  see,  it  didn't  last  too  long,  because  the  abstract 

expressionism wastoo  strong.   But  I  think  many  more  are  beginning  to 

come  back.   This  photographic  realism  is  an  extreme;  but  maybe  this 

vacillation  between  extremes  will  bring  us  something  more  human. 

Oldfield:   I  know  that  Otis  particularly — because  I  know  more  about  him  than 

I  do  about  Marty — felt  that  nature  was  the  base.   It  was  all  right  to 
depart;  in  fact,  he  would  be  the  first  one  to  say  that  art  is  not 
holding  up  a  mirror  to  nature.   It's  nature  expressed  through 
temperament.   And  the  temperament  is  very  important.   He  had 
rather  disparaging  things  to  say  about  what  he  called  decorative 


Oldfield: 
DuCasse: 
Oldfield: 
DuCasse: 


136 


Oldfield:   art.   He  considered  most  non-objective  painting  primarily  decorative. 
That's  why  he  considered  it  without  concept.   He  felt  that  it  was 
missing  something  essential. 

DuCasse:   That's  interesting.   How  did  he  feel,  say,  about  the  work  of 

Arthur  Mathews,  which  is  now  considered  decorative.   He  was  the 
leader  of  the  so-called  Decorative  School.   Was  that  kind  of 
decorative  art  also  something  which  he  felt  was — 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  can't  swear  to  it,  but  I  would  guess  that  he  would  have 
included  that.   It's  not  emotional  enough.   For  him,  expression 
had  to  be  emotional.   It  had  to  contain  the  emotion  of  the  artist 
and  his  response  to  it.   Whether  it  was  landscape,  a  still  life, 
or  a  figure,  the  idea  applied. 

Cravath:   Did  he  ever  study  with  Arthur  Mathews? 

Oldfield:   No.   When  he  was  here,  I  think  Arthur  Mathews  was  the  head  of  the 
art  school — 

DuCasse:    At  the  turn  of  the  century. 

Oldfield:   At  the  turn  of  the  century  was  he?  Well,  Otis  was  here  then.   He 
was  here,  but  he  was  at  the  Best's  school.   He  wasn't  studying 
at  the  Art  Institute. 

Cravath:    It  was  the  California  School  of  Fine  Arts. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  some  of  the  anecdotes  that  I've  heard  about  the  art 

school  at  the  time  that  Arthur  Best  was  there.   Isabel  West  was  a 
student  there,  and  so  was  Ralph  Stackpole.   He  told  me  that  she  wore 
a  bustle,  and  that  the  other  students  in  the  life  class  would  put 
their  charcoal  on  her  bustle.   [laughter] 


137 


Cravath:   Who  told  you  that,  Ralph? 

Oldfield:   Ralph. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  that's  lovely.   That  is  cute! 

Cravath:    Isabel  Percy  West. 

Oldfield:   She  was  one  of  my  favorite  teachers. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  she  was  a  good  teacher.   And  I  think  she  had  a  tremendous  personal 
interest  in  the  students,  too. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   I  remember  that  she  used  to  invite  us  over  to  Sausalito  weekends, 
I  remember  going  over  time  after  time  with  crowds  of  students.   I 
think  ten  or  twelve  of  us  would  go  at  a  time.   And  bless  her  heart, 
she  would  not  kick  us  out,  she  would  give  us  dinner. 

I  remember  that  one  of  the  group  that  I  went  with  was  Louis 
Miljarik,  and  Dorothy — what  was  her  name — afterwards  married 
Otis  Shepherd — I  can't  remember  what  her  name  was  before.   Anyway, 
those  are  two  of  the  people  I  remember  who  were  in  the  group  that 
went  to  visit  Mrs.  West  on  her  invitation  for  weekends.  We  didn't 
stay  all  weekend;  we  would  spend  the  day.   But  it  meant  going 
across  the  bay.  We  would  get  there  as  early  as  we  could,  and  stay 
all  afternoon  and  talk,  and  then  she  didn't  want  to  kick  us  out 
because  she  had  to  feed  us.   And  she  did  it!   She  was  marvelous. 
Her  poor  husband  suffered  through  it. 

DuCasse:        Yes,   he  was  not  an  artist,  was  he? 

Oldfield:   No.   I  think  he  was  a  newspaperman,  wasn't  he? 

DuCasse:    I'm  not  sure.   Do  you  remember  her  little  electric  car? 

Oldfield:   Yes. 


138 


DuCasse:    I  can  still  see  her  riding  around  in  that  little  car. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  that  from  the  days  down  on  Alls ton  Way. 

DuCasse:    I  saw  her  in  the  last  years  of  her  life.   Amazing — she  was  still 
getting  around. 

Cravath:   When  did  she  die? 

DuCasse:    Just  a  couple  of  years  ago.   I  think  it  was  not  too  long  ago.   It 
was  quite  recent.   She  was  in  her  nineties.  Wonderful  old  girl. 

Let's  see.   Are  there  any  others  that  you  can  think  of  the 
younger  group?    You  mentioned   Diebenkorn    and  Hassell  Smith — 

Oldfield:   They,  of  course,  were  not  close  friends.   They  were  people  that 

I  knew  as  students.   I  remember  quite  a  few  names  of  people  who  were 
students  who  are  not  important  enough  to  be  included  in  this  thing. 
It  was  his  habit  to  invite  certain  students  of  whom  he  became 
rather  fond  on  that  basis  of  teacher-student  to  come  to  the  studio 
and  pose  for  a  little  head  or  something.   I  used  to  put  them  up, 
and  it  was  my  turn  to  get  the  dinner  and  feed  the  visiting  students 
at  that  time.   I  went  through  a  long  period  of  doing  that,  especially 

after  he  was  teaching  at  Arts  and  Crafts.   I  still  know  a  few  of 

\ 
the  students  whom  I  met  at  that  time.   One  is  Steve  Perun  . 

Who  else  was  there  in  that  group?   Shirley  and  ^loyd  Massengill — 
these  names  don't  mean  anything.   But  there  was  quite  a  large  group 
of  them.   They  would  come  and  spend  a  Sunday  or  a  Saturday  in  the 
studio  with  a  lot  of  talk.   Then  they  would  still  be  there,  and  I 
would  cook  up  a  pot  of  spaghetti  or  something  and  feed  them  all. 

One  day,  a  group  of  these  people  came  in.   I  saw  them  approaching; 


139 


Oldfield:   their  cars  were  parked  across  the  street,  and  I  saw  them  all 

converging  on  our  house.   I  didn't  realize  that  this  was  going  to 
be  any  different  from  the  other  times  when  the  group  had  come  over. 
But  it  happened  to  be  my  birthday.   And  they  had  come  with  a  cake 
and  a  gift  of  French  perfume.   It  was  very,  very  sweet  of  them. 
We  had  an  evening.   Of  course,  I  still  cooked  the  dinner,  but 
they  had  brought  the  dessert.   But  there  was  a  big  crowd  of  them. 
I  guess  there  were  probably  drinks,  too.   I  don't  remember  that. 

DuCasse:   Must  have  had  a  little  bit  of  red  wine  somewhere. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  red  wine  or  probably  martinis,  because  that  was  the  martini 
era.   I  loathe  martinis  now. 

DuCasse:   So  do  I!   [laughter] 

Oldfield:      But   that's  what   it  was  all   the  time,    or  maybe  gin  and   tonic.      They 
probably  brought   that,    too.      Otis  had  a  store  of  cognac,   which  he 
hid  under   the  French   couch.      He  hid   it  under   the   studio   couch — 

DuCasse:        It  was  handy,   but  not  visible. 

Oldfield:   Handy  but  not  visible.   I  heard  for  years  from  these  young  people 
how  amused  they  were  the  first  time  he  offered  them  a  drink,  and 
pulled  out  the  couch  and  got  a  bottle.    [laughter]   He  was  very 
parsimonious  with  his  cognac. 

DuCasse:   You  have  to  be  a  real  appreciator — 

Oldfield:  I  don't  think  I  ever  became  an  appreciator  of  that.  It  tasted  like 
medicine  to  me.  But  he  enjoyed  it,  and  apparently  a  bunch  of  those 
kids  did,  too. 

They  would  come  over  and  tell  him  their  problems.   I  remember 


140 


Oldfield:   there  was  one  couple — his  name  was  Jim  Robinson,  and  he  had  been 
a  student  at  Arts  and  Crafts,  and  he  had  been  a  Marine  in  World 
War  II.   After  coming  back,  he  had  married.   He'd  had  enough  of 
war;  he  didn't  want  to  be  involved  in  the  war  at  all  anymore. 
Then  the  Korean  war  came  along.   He  arrived  at  the  house  with  his 
wife  one  day,  almost  in  tears.   He  said,  "They  took  me."  He 
had  to  go  back  in  tthe  Marines.   And  he  was  terribly  upset  about  it. 
He  didn't  want  to  leave.   He  had  done  it,  and  he  didn't  want  to  be 
involved  again.   So  he  was  another  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  students 
who  became  friends.   They  really  became  friends  because  the 
association  went  on  for  many  years  after  Otis  had  left  Arts  and 
Crafts. 

DuCasse:    I  think  very  often  a  teacher  will  make  friends  with  certain  of  his 
students,  who  really  become  life-long  friends.   I  have  several 
who  have  been  like  that  to  me. 

Oldfield:   I  have  too.   In  fact,  the  only  valentine  I  got  this  year,  not  counting 
my  daughter's  flowers,  was  from  a  student  that  I  had  in  the  fifties. 
She  said,  "Hi,  teacher." 

I  have  another  one  who  is  in  Indonesia  now — a  very  intense  little 
person  who  has  been  over  there  for  three  years.   She  keeps  writing 
to  me.   Her  mother  lives  in  Tiburon.   Her  mother  comes  around  and 
takes  me  out  once  in  a  while.   This  is  all  inspired  by  this  little 
girl  who  was  my  student. 

Cravath:   Was  that  at  Hamlin? 

Oldfield:   At  Hamlin,  yes. 


141 


DuCasse:   We  talked  about  several  things  that  Otis  was  interested  in  in  the 
twentieth  century  development.   Did  he  have  any  artistts  in  the 
past  that  he  revered?  Marty  had  some  of  his  favorites — 

Oldfield:   That  far  back,  I  don't  remember — 

DuCasse:   Were  there  any  that  he  ever  mentioned? 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  he  talked  a  good  deal  about  Renoir.   He  liked  Renoir,  and 
he  didn't  like  Picasso. 

DuCasse:    I  can  understand  why. 

Oldfield:   But  he  did  like  Mat  isse. 

DuCasse:   Mat  isse  was  much  more  serious  than  Picasso. 

Oldfield:  Well,  I  don't  know  about  that.   I  admire  a  great  deal  in  Picasso. 
I  am  just  overcome  by  awe  viewing  some  of  his  draftsmanship.   I 
think  that  he  was  a  great  artist.   But  I  think  a  lot  of  things  of  his  were 
tongue  in  cheek,  too.   And,  of  course,  he  got  away  with  it,  especially 
in  the  later  years.   But  that  doesn't  spoil  him  for  me,  because  he 
did  a  lot  of  things  that  were  very  expressive.   However,  Otis  didn't 
go  for  him  very  much. 

I  remember,  though,  in  our  studio  on  Russian  Hill,  Otis  had  cut 
out  a  small  head  of  Picasso — I  think  it  was  a  photograph — and  tacked 
it  up  on  the  studio  wall.   One  day,  our  two  children,  who  were  little 
kids  at  the  time,  were  in  the  studio,  and  Jane  asked  Rhoda,  the 
older  one,  "Who's  that?" 

And  Otis  said,  "Don't  you  know?   It's  President  Roosevelt." 


[end  tape  5,  side  B] 


142 


[begin  tape   6,    side  A] 


DuCasse:        Let's   talk  about  Diego  Rivera,   because  you  just   approached   it  once, 
and   I  said,    "Let's  wait  until   it  kind  of   comes    in  naturally." 

Oldfield:      All  right.      It  may  be  a  little  repetitive;    I  don't  know  what   I  told 
you. 

DuCasse:        That  won't  make   any  difference. 

Oldfield:      My   first  memory  of  Diego — and   I  think   I  may  have   told  you  this 

story — was   the  day   that  we  picked  him  up   in  our  little  car.      I  don't 
remember  where,   but   it  was  on  his   first  visit   to   San  Francisco,    in 
the   thirties.      It  was  when  he  did  the  Stock  Exchange. 

Cravath:        And   the  Art   School? 

Oldfield:   And  the  Art  School  was  done  on  that  first  visit  too.   We  picked  him 

up  somewhere — it  wasn't  at  the  airport — I  don't  remember  where  it  was, 
As  I  remember  it,  I  have  a  mental  picture  of  a  downtown  street.   So 
it  must  have  been  somewhere  downtown.   He  climbed  into  the  back  seat 
of  our  little  car — 

DuCasse:   Could  he  get  in? 

Oldfield:   He  got  in  all  right,  but  the  fenders  went  right  down  on  the  wheels, 
and  the  wheels  couldn't  turn.   So  I  had  to  get  out  and  give  him 
my  seat,  which  was  what  they  called  the  suicide  seat,  the  front  seat. 
In  that  position,  apparently  the  wheels  would  turn. 

Cravath:   Where  did  you  go  then? 

Oldfield:   I  got  in  the  back  seat,  where  he  had  been.   I  didn't  weigh  as  much; 
he  weighed  well  over  three  hundred  pounds . 


143 


Oldfield:   He  was  sweet  and  kind.   I  don't  know  where  Frieda  was.   I  don't 

remember  that  she  was  with  him  on  that  occasion,  but  she  might  have 
been,  because  he  might  have  completely  absorbed  my  attention.   She 
was  always  so  retiring  and  quiet  that  she  might  have  been  there, 
and  maybe  I  got  in  the  back  seat  with  her.   I  don't  know. 

Anyway,  we  got  to  know  him  quite  well  after  that.   As  I  remember, 
he  lived  in  the  studio  which  was  in  Ralph  Stackpole's^- 

Cravath:   That  was  715  Montgomery  Street. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  which  was  where  I  had  been  married,  and  which  Ruth  occupied 

later.   Then  he  began  accepting  all  of  the  social  invitations  that 
he  received  as  a  matter  of  policy.   He  couldn't  have  been  interested 
in  absolutely  all  of  them.   I  remember  that  Ralph  used  to  complain 
that  he  was  wearing  himself  out  stupidly  and  unnecessarily,  because 
he  didn't  have  to  accept  all  of  those  invitations.   But  one  of  them 
that  he  accepted  was  from  a  friend  of  ours  who  wanted  to  have  him 
present  at  a  Christmas  party.   So  somewhere  I  have  a  photograph  of 
my  two  little  kids  and  Diego  and  Frieda  and  Otis  and  me  sitting 
before  a  Christmas  tree  all  decorated  with  those  little  paper  hats 
you  used  to  get  out  of  bon-bons,  and  false  moustaches,  and  whistles 
and  things.  We  were  all  dressed  up  in  those  things.   I  would  offer 
to  find  it  for  you,  except  that  I  have  been  trying  to  find  it,  and 
can't  put  my  finger  on  it. 

DuCasse:    Someday  when  you're  looking  for  something  else,  you  will. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  that's  the  way  it  happens. 


144 


DuCasse:    I  think  Diego  was  that  type  of  person:  very  charming  and  affable. 
Playful. 

Oldfield:   And  he  liked  people;  he  was  interested  in  people,  and  he  didn't  mind 
putting  himself  out  for  it.   I  remember  another  occasion  when  a 
Chinese  group  had  a  big  banquet — I  think  it  was  in  his  honor,  and 
he  probably  felt  that  was  an  obligation  too.   But  he  sat  for  hours 
and  hours  on  one  of  those  little  square  lacquered  stools,  that  must 
have  cut  him  in  two,  because  he  was  so  heavy.   And  he  overflowed  on 
all  sides  of  it,  you  know!   He  must  have  had  an  imprint 

Anyway,  he  did  it,  and  he  didn't  show  any  signs  of  pain.   He 
answered  all  their  questions.   He  talked  extemporaneously  about 
everything  that  came  into  his  mind.   And  everybody  who  was  present 
was  fascinated.   1  was  there  with  Otis  because  Otis  had  been 
instrumental  in  starting  this  Chinese  group  through  his  student 
^un  Gee.  Yun  was  really  the  instigator  of  the  Chinese  Art 
Association,  I  think  they  called  it.   The  members  met  in  Yun  's 
studio.   They  thought  of  him  as  a  sort  of  a  guru.   Most  of  them 
were  not  even  necessarily  attracted  to  painting;  but  this  was  an 
opportunity  to  be  a  part  of  some  group  which  gave  some  prestige 
to  the  Chinese  who  were   in  a  rather  submerged  position  at  the 
time. 

When  I  went  toy  un  's  show  at  the  Oakland  Museum — was  it  last 
year  or  the  year  before? — I  was  amazed  to  find  that  nearly  all  of 
the  people  there  were  Chinese.   I  would  have  thought  with  the 


145 


Oldfield:      Oakland  Museum's  mailing  list,    there  would  have  been  a  lot  of  others, 
But  we  were  among  the  few  who  were  non-Chinese. 

DuCasse:   Well,  probably  because  that  is  a  period  that  is  only  now  being 
revived,  in  a  sense — that  period  in  which — 

Oldfield:  When  he  was  in  San  Francisco,  it  was  twenties.   It  was  late 
twenties. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  and  it  was  S.  MacDonald  Wright  and  His  whole  group,  you  see. 
Now,  that's  being  explored;  so  many  who  got  the  invitation  for 
it  may  not  have  recognized  the  name  or  realized  that  this  was  an 
important  person  to  see. 

As  it  happened,  I  received  the  invitation,  and  I  couldn't  go 
that  day  for  some  reason.   But  I  went  down  to  see  the  exhibit 
•  very  soon  after,  and  I  was  just  enthralled;  I  thought  it  was 
magnificent.   His  work  is  beautiful.   That  was  a  very  important 
period.   Billy  Justema  knew  S.  MacDonald  Wright,  and  through  him 
I  got  a  lot  of  information  on  that  program.   That  was  a  marvelous 
example — in  fact,  I  told  my  students.   I  said,  "Here  is  an  example 
of  that  kind  of  painting  which  you  don't  see  very  often.   Go  and 
see  it." 

Oldfield:   I  have  become  very  friendly  with  his  widow.   She  is  hoping  to  be 
here  again  this  Spring  sometime,  depending  on  whether  she's 
invited  to  lecture — she's  a  photographer.   She  hopes  to  be  invited 
to  lecture  for  a  photography  exhibit  which  is  to  be  held  in  Long 
Beach.   If  she  does  come,  she  will  come  up  here,  and  I  would  like 
to  see  her  again.   But  we  do  correspond. 


146 


Cravath:        I'm  so   sorry   I  didn't  get  to  meet  her  when  shewas  here  for  that   show. 

Oldfield:i     You  can  get   a  chance   to   do   it   if   and  when  she  comes  up  again.      But 
it's  a  little  bit   in  the  lap  of   the  gods,    you  know. 

DuCasse:        Not   to  change   the  subject,   but  because   I  don't  want   to   get   too   far 
away   from  it,   you  mentioned  just  briefly  about  Frieda.      Did  you 
then  other  times  have  a  chance   to   get   to   know  Frieda  very  well? 

Oldfield:      Oh,   yes,   Frieda  was   at  my  house  many  times.      I   thought   she  was 
beautiful,    exotic,   but   I  couldn't   talk  to  her  very  much.      She 
didn't  speak  any  French,    and  she  didn't  speak  any  English.      And 
besides,   she  was  very   ill.      She  would  spend   the  evening  on  the   couch, 
or  retire   into  her  bedroom  and  just   stay   there,   because  she   couldn't 
participate   in  the  conversation,    and  she  was   feeling  miserable. 
In  this   little  photograph   I  have  of   the  Christmas   that  we  spent 
together,    she   is   sitting — she  wasn't   tired  enough  not   to  be  visible 
in  the  photograph — she's    in  the  photograph.      As   I  remember,   most 
of   the   time  she  was  just   absent.      She  would   come  and  put   in  an 
appearance. 

The  second   time  that  he  came,  when  he  painted   the  mural  which ;is 
now  at  City  College — he  worked  on  Treasure   Island — she  was   in  much 
better  shape   then. 
I  remember  seeing  her  downtown  when  her   color  was    good. 


Cravath: 
DuCasse: 
Oldfield: 

DuCasse: 


Yes,  I  remember  seeing  her  at  that  time  also. 

more  active 
I  remember  seeing  her  then,   when  she  was   really — although  she 

was  still  rather  out  of  it  as  far  as  conversation  was  concerned — 
But  she  could  speak  a  little.   I  remember  talking  to  her. 


147 


Oldfield:   She  could  speak  a  little  .   She  had  a  few  words.   And  she  was  very 
amiable  about  it;  she  tried.   And  she  was  i.in  better  physical 
condition.   This  was  the  time  when  they  remarried.   They  had  been 
divorced,  I  believe,  between  the  two  visits.   The  second  time 
they  had  their  second  marriage  ceremony  here.   They're  the  only 
people  I  know,  besides  my  own  daughter,  who  have  done  that.   My 
daughter  has  married  the  same  man  three  times.   Remarried  twice! 

DuCasse:   Speaks  well  for  the  state  of  marriage,  doesn't  it? 

Oldfield:      I  don't  know  whether   it  does   or  not.      I  think  that   it  must  mean 
that  she  has  matured  a  little  bit,    although   it   sounds   to  other 
people  as   though   she  has   trouble  making  up  her  mind.      I  don't 
know  which   it   is . 

But  I  do  know  that  she  is  not  being  critical  of  him  now,  and  she 
definitely  was. 

DuCasse:   Did  we  ask  you  if  you  had  met  Orozco  when  he  came  to  San  Francisco? 

Oldfield:   Yes,  I  met  him,  but  just  at  parties.   I  never  really  got  to  know  him. 
I  met  him  because  I  was  politely  introduced  to  him,  and  he  politely 
acknowledged  it.   I  also  met  Covarrubias  that  way. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  and  Covarrubias  was  a  charmer,  too. 

Oldfield:   But  I  didn't  get  to  know  him,  either.   It  was  just  a  matter  of 
introduction  and  a  little  polite  conversation. 

DuCasse:    It  was  wonderful  that  they  got  to  San  Francisco,  because  they  had 
really  influenced  the  trend  of  arts  in  the  forties  here. 

Oldfield:  Well,  especially  Rivera,  I  would  guess. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  I  guess  he  really  had  more  personal  influence. 


148 


Oldfield:   I  rather  feel  that  in  my  own  estimation,  Orozco  is  the  greatest 

artist  of  the  three.   But  I  think  that  Diego  had  the  greatest  impact 
on  San  Francisco. 

DuCasse:   And  I  think  from  what  you  have  said  now  about  how  he  put  himself 

out  and  was  so  open  to  meeting  and  mixing  with  people,  I  think  that 
was  part  of  it.   He  was  genuinely  interested  in  becoming  a  part  of 
the  community  while  he  was  here. 

Oldfield:   Yes.   And  of  course,  many  of  the  artists  who  were  working  here — 
oh,  another  name  that  I  may  or  may  not  have  mentioned,  who  was 
an  artist  who  was  close  to  us  was  Ray  Boynton.   Ray  had  been  down 
there,  and  met  Diego,  and  learned  the  fresco  technique  in  Mexico. 
Most  of  the  artists  who  worked  at  the  Coit  Tower  had  come  under  his 
influence — under  Rivera's  influence.   Ralph  Stackpole,  and  Victor 
Arnautoff — they  all  had — I  guess  Victor  studied  with  him,  I  don't 
know  whether  Ralph  did  or  not.   But  they  were  very  close  friends* 
It  was  Diego's  influence  that  caused  all  of  those  murals  in  the  Coit 
Tower  to  be  frescos. 

DuCasse:   Did  Otis  do  any  of  those? 

Oldfield:   No,  he  did  an  oil  painting  which  is  in  the  elevator  foyer.   In 
fact,  he  was  in  charge  of  the  group  that  worked  in  oils. 

Cravath:   Didn't  Ray  Boynton  do  one  of  those,  too? 

Oldfield:   No.   Rinaldo  did  two,  and  Moya  did  one  and  Otis  did  one.   There 
are  only  four.   They  were  not  done  in  place,  like  the  frescos. 
They  were  done  in  the  studio  and  applied  to  the  walls.   Otis  much 
preferred  that  way.   He  was  never  intrigued  by  fresco. 

DuCasse:        That's   a  messy  proposition. 


149 


Oldfield:   It's  a  messy  proposition,  and  it's  like— I  think  a  little  bit  of 
his  aversion  was  the  same  as  his  aversion  to  water  colors.   It's 
an  instantaneous  medium.   You  must  make  up  your  mind,  and  you  must 
go  right  ahead  and  do  it  while  the  time  is  right.   You  have  to  work 
when  the  plaster's  wet. 

DuCasse:       That  was  very  consistent  with  his  attitude  towards  watercolor  techniq' 

Oldfield:  Well,  he  was  consistent  in  some  ways,  anyway. 

So  they  painted  those  panels  in  the  studio,  and  they  were 
applied  to  the  walls.   Otis  also  did  the  lunettes  that  are  over 
the  elevators.   They're  little  seagull  things. 

He  had  some  influence  on  the  subject  matter,  and  he  chose  the 
men  he  wanted  to  work  with  him.   Originally,  one  of  them  was  to  have 
been  done  by  Bill  Dahl.   Bill  backed  out  for  some  reason.   I  think 
he  was  teaching  at  Stanford  at  the  time,  and  he  didn't  have  enough 
time  to  give  to  it.   So  he  backed  out.   That  was  the  reason  that 
Rinaldo  did  two  of  the  panels.   Moya  did  one,  and  Otis  did  one. 

Cravath:        They're   there  now. 

Oldfield:   They're  there,  and  they're  using  the  elevator  again  now.   So  I 
guess  they're  accessible.   The  room  was  blocked  off  for  a  while. 

DuCasse:   Those  have  all  been  restored  now,  at  least  the  frescos  have. 

Oldfield:   The  frescos — I  don't  know  whether  the  oil  panels  were  damaged  or 
not. 

DuCasse:   They  probably  weren't,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  to  begin  with, 

they  are  not  quite  as  fragile.  And  I  think  they  were  in  a  position, 
perhaps,  where  they  weren't  quite  so  easily — 


150 


Oldfield:   They're  not  so  easy  to  scratch. 

DuCasse:        When  they're  down  below  your  arm  level,   why,    it's   too   tempting. 

Oldfield:   Those  oil  panels  are  too.   They're  tall;  they  come  down  to  maybe 

twenty-five  or  thirty  inches  from  the  floor. 
Cravath :   Can  you  go  up  into  the  tower  now? 

Oldfield:  You  can  go  up  the  stairs,  I  guess,  if  you  have  the  fortitude. 
Cravath:  Do  you  remember  when  we  had  that  tour  for  the  Oakland  Museum? 
Oldfield:  Yes. 

Cravath:    [to  DuCasse]   Did  you  come  along? 
DuCasse:   No,  but  you  and  Dorothy  and  I  went  specially,  just  the  three  of  us. 

I  took  all  those  slides,  remember,  because  I  needed  them  for  my 

history  of  California  art.   That  was  before  it  was  open  to  the 

public. 

Cravath:    I  haven't  been  there  since.  We'll  have  to  go  some  time. 
DuCasse:   Yes,  we'll  have  to  go.   I'd  like  to  get  pictures  now  of  those  oil 

paintings,  because  they  were  in  a  position  where  the  light  wasn't 

very  good. 
Oldfield:   Well,  they  aren't  very  well  lighted.   But  I  expect  you  could — with  a 

flash. 

DuCasse:   We  could  try  it  anyway. 
Cravath:    [to  Oldfield]  Would  you  like  to  go? 
Oldfield:   Yes,  of  course.   Let's  do  that,  if  I  can  manage  it. 
DuCasse:   Some  beautiful  day  like  this,  we'll  manage  it.  We'll  get  you  up 

there. 
Oldfield:   Okay.  Well,  I  don't  want  you  to  have  to  carry  me,  but  1  can  walk. 


151 


Oldfield:   I'm  slow,  and  it  takes  me  a  long  time. 

DuCasse:    Fortunately,  when  we  get  up  to  the  top,  then  you  don't  have  to  do 

anything  more  than  walk  straight  lines. 
Oldfield:   Yes.   And  I'm  very  nostalgic  about  that  thing,  because  I  was 

living  on  Telegraph  Hill  at  the  time  that  this  was  done,  you  know. 

I  used  to  take  my  children  and  go  up  there  and  walk  around  and  see 

the  progress  and  watch  them  working. 

I  remember  one  day  Victor  had  his  youngest  son  there,  Jake. 

Jake  was  a  little  towheaded  kid — 
Cravath:   As  wide  as  he  was  tall! 
Oldfield:   Yes.   Victor  kept  introducing  him  as  his  little  Mexican,  because 

he  was  born  in  Mexico . 

Then  I  remember  Kenneth  Rexroth  and  someone  else  who  was  up 

there  trying  to  organize  the  artists  into — I  think  they  called  it 

a  guild.   But  it  was  really  a  union. 
Cravath:   Was  Artists'  Equity  a  result  of  that? 
Oldfield:   No,  I  don't  think  so.   I  think  this  was  another  thing  entirely. 

It  was  called  the  Artists'  Guild.   Otis  was  the  thorn  in  the  flesh. 

He  was  not  a  joiner;  he  didn't  want  to  join  anything,  although  he 

was  a  member  of  the  Art  Association  and  the  Artists'  Council  for 

years.   That  he  considered  constructive.   But  he  never  joined 

Artists'  Equity — or  maybe  he  did  at  the  very  end. 
Cravath:    I  remember  we  were  both  on  the  board. 
Oldfield:   I  did.   I  think  we  had  a  joint  membership  at  the  very  end  of  his 

life.   Somebody  talked  him  into  it. 
DuCasse:   You  could  get  the  blame  for  it. 


152 


Oldfield:   [laughter]   I  guess  so.   Anyway,  he  refused  for  a  long  time  because 
he  disapproved  of  these  organizations  which  tried  to  safeguard 
artists.   He  sincerely  believed  that  you  became  a  professional 
artist  by  creating  and  showing  your  work  and  earning  awards  like 
prizes,  or  being  able  to  sell.   He  thought  that  was  the  only  way 
you  could  become  an  artist.   And  anything  that  was  going  to  give 
you  any  guarantee  or  even  help  you  was  suspect,  and  he  didn't  want 
anything  to  do  with  it. 

DuCasse:        How  did  he  feel  about   teaching?     Did  he  feel   that   that  was  a  little 
outside  therealm  of  the  creative  artist? 

Oldfield:  No,  he  approved  of  teaching.   He  loved  to  teach,  and  I've  had  many 
of  his  students,  including  Nathan  Oliviera,  say  that  he  was  the 
most  inspiring  teacher  they'd  ever  had. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  I'm  sure  he  was.   He  had  so  much  spirit;  that's  what  students 
need  in  their  teachers. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  he  was  inspiring.   But  he  liked  teaching.   It  is  a  creative 

endeavor  after  all,  and  he  found  it  creative.   He  much  preferred  it 
as  a  way  of  making  a  living  to  any  kind  of  commercial  art.   That 
he  scorned,  although  he  did  take  a  few  commercial  assignments  when 
he  was  having  problems  having  enough  to  eat  when  he  first  came  to 
San  Francisco . 

For  a  short  time,  he  had  a  job  on  the  San  Francisco  Call,  making 
drawings  of  San  Francisco  scenes.   I  have  somewhere  a  collection  of 
some  of  them — not  the  original  drawings,  but  the  newsprint  ones. 
I  remember  that  one  of  them  is  the  Powell  Street  cable  car  turntable 
with  all  the  people  piled  on  it.   He  did  quite  a  few  of  those.   They 


153 


Oldfield:   sent  him  out  on  assignments.   The  end  of  that  came  quite  a  long  time 
before  we  were  married. 

He  told  me  the  story;  I  wasn't  present  at  the  actual  happening. 
He  was  assigned  to  cover  a  French  ship  which  was  in  dock.   So  he 
went — 

DuCasse:   He  must  have  enjoyed  that. 

Oldfield:      He   got  drunk.      [laughter]      This   is  by  his  own  account;    I  wasn't 

there.   He  had  such  a  grand  time,  and  they  plied  him  with  wine  and 
whatever — I  don't  know  what  he  got.   But  he  didn't  get  any  drawings. 
He  went  back  to  the  newspaper  the  next  day  and  got  fired.   He  also 
went  to  the  hotel  where  he  was  living  at  that  time.   They  were 
shocked,  and  plied  him  with  coffee  and  a  cold  bath  and  sobered  him 
up.   But  he  didn't  get  the  drawings  he  was  assigned  to  make.   So 
he  lost  his  job  on  the  Call. 

Cravath:   That  was  before  you  were  married. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  quite  a  while.   I  was  not  aware  of  it  until  he  told  me  about 
it. 

But  he  did  do  a  few  commercial  things  like  that.   However,  I 
don't  think  he  really  thought  of  that  newspaper  assignment  as 
commercial.   It  was,  of  course,  but  it  also  called  upon  his  fine 
art  abilities. 

DuCasse:   Oh,  absolutely.   And  his  own  personal  response  to  things,  too. 

Oldfield:   I  remember  another  of  the  places  that  he  covered  where  he  was  sent 
was  a  prize  fight.   There  were  drawings  of  that  somewhere. 

DuCasse:   Who  was  the  artist  in  New  York  that  did  the  same  subject? 


154 


Oldfield:   Bellows? 

DuCasse:   Bellows.   It's  interesting:   some  artists  are  very  intrigued  with — 

Oldfield:  Well,  Otis  just  made  drawings.   But  he  was  very  good  at  pencil 

sketching,   charcoal   sketching  he  did — 

DuCasse:    I  imagine  that  he  had  a  technique  that  really  worked. 
Oldfield:   Very  expressive,  and  done  with  great  economy  of  line. 
Cravath:   You'll  have  to  show — 
Oldfield:   Well,  you  know  where  they  are,  honey;  you  get  them  down  anytime 

you  want. 
DuCasse:   They  must  have — Marty  had  that  same  gift.    I  think  that  was  stimulated 

and  developed  in  Paris.   I  think  the  artists  there — they  never  stop 

drawing.  Wherever  they  went,  they  were  sketching. 
Oldfield:   There's  a  whole  collection — I  don't  have  them  here;  Jane  has  them 

in  her  house — of  little  sketches  about  that  big  that  he  made  on 

the  streetcar.   Anyplace — always  had  a  stub  of  a  pencil  and  this 

little  book. 
DuCasse:   And  that,  of  course,  is  why  they  became  good,  solid  artists.   They 

knew  nature  so  beautifully;  they  knew  character. 
Cravath:   Right.  With  just  a  few  lines — 
Oldfield:   And  this  was  his  subject  matter  as  long  as  he  lived:   people.   He 

loved  to  do  people.   He  did  some  still  life,  but  he  found  it  a 

little  bit  dull.   It  wasn't  exciting  enough  for  him. 

DuCasse:   I  don't  blame  him.   I  hated  still  life  when  I  was  a  student. 
Cravath:   But  he  did  a  lot  of  lovely  little  landscape  sketches. 
Oldfield:   Yes,  he  did  lots  of  landscapes. 


155 


Cravath:   Dozens  of  little  ones  that  we  used  to  do  up  in  Gold  Run. 

Oldfield:   Yes,  at  Gold  Run,  and  also  at  Alta.   He  tried  to  sell  those.   He 
offered  them  for  ten,  fifteen,  twenty-five  dollars.   Toward  the 
end  of  his  life,  people  kept  talking  him  into  showing  these  things 
and  trying  to  sell  them.   The  experience  was  so  humiliating  and 
discouraging,  you  know.   Friends  would  arrange  for  wall  space  where 
he  could  show  them  in  banks,  or  public  buildings  of  various  kinds. 
This  meant  getting  them  framed,  hanging  them  himself,  taking  them 
down,  and  bringing  them  home.   People  would  say  things  to  him,  passing 
by,  like,  "Can't  you  do  any  better  than  that?"  Oh,  it  was  so_ 
insulting! 

DuCasse:   They  were  just  not  able  to  appreciate  what  those  were. 

Oldfield:   So  he  finally  came  to  the  place  where  he  thought  it  was  very  foolish 
to  expose  himself  to  that  sort  of  thing.   So  he  would  absolutely 
refuse. 

DuCasse:    I  don't  blame  him,  because  that's  not  right.   It's  still  very 
difficult;  even  the  collectors  of  art  will  always  say,  "Do  you 
have  any  paintings?" 

I  say,    "No,    I  don't.      But   I  have  his  finer  drawings,    that  he 
felt  were   the  best   thing   in  his  life."     They're  not   interested. 
They  want  a  painting;    they  feel   that  is  a   complete  thing.      While 
a  drawing  can  be  just  as   complete,    if  not  more  so. 

Oldfield:      I  wonder  if  we'll   ever  come  to   the  place  where  people  want  Otis' 
paintings. 

DuCasse:        They  probably  will,   because  now — we  were  saying  this  a  little  bit 


156 


DuCasse:   earlier — more  and  more  they  are  beginning  to  appreciate  the  men  who 
were  in  that  transition  period,  if  you  will,  who  didn't  jump  on  the 
abstract  expressionist  bandwagon.   They  remained  true  to  their  own 
selves;  now  they  are  going  to  be  seen  in  the  proper  perspective  to 
what  they  were.   And  really,  from  what  greater  individuals  as 

+y\£i^r  WOT^O  -| 

artists  "^because  they  remained  true  to  their  own  lights.   But  it's 
coming. 

Oldfield:   I'm  not  sure  that  I'll  be  around.   But  I'm  trying  to  get  my 

daughter  interested  enough  in  it  so  that  she  will  carry  on  and 
that  she  will  have  access  to  them.   She's  already  trying  to  help 
me  preserve  them  and  record  them. 

DuCasse:   We  must — this  is  something  I'm  certainly  going  to  do,  and  I'll  take 
this  upon  myself  while  there  are  still  people  at  the  museum  that 
I  know.   You  see,  the  Oakland  Museum  is  trying  to  remedy  this 
unfortunate  lack  of  interest.   They  have  been  systematically  giving 
retrospective  shows  to  these  key  figures.   I'm  sure  that  they're 
intending  Otis  is  to  be  one  of  them.   But  I'm  going  to  mention  this. 
I'm  going  to  tell  them  that  I've  been  doing  this  work  with  Helen. 
I'm  going  to  say,  "You've  got  to  get  that  done,  you've  got  to 
do  that,  especially  while  Helen  is  able  to  gather  together  the 
materials."   Fortunately,  if  the  Oakland  Museum  did  it,  they  would 
do  a  lot  of  that.   I  think  that  they  would  relieve  you  of  a  lot  of 
the  heavy  work. 

Oldfield:  Well,  Terry  St.  John  has  been  over  here  and  looked  at  the  collection 
of  paintings. 


157 


DuCasse:   Yes.   You  see,  he's  the  one  who  would  be  interested  in  it. 


[end  tape  6,  side  A] 


[Date  of  Interview:   25  February,  1981;  begin  tape  6,  side  B] 


DuCasse:   We're  going  to  go  back  to  some  of  the  material  on  our  first  tape 
and  get  the  real  reason  behind  the  delay  in  your  going  eventually 
to  art  school.   You  want  to  say  a  word  or  two,  and  then  we'll  play 
this  back  and  see  what  we're  getting. 

Oldfield:   You  mean  like  "testing,"  something  like  that? 

DuCasse:   Yes.   Just  so  we  know  we've  heard  your  voice.   {brief  tape  interruption] 
Okay,  if  you  want  to  start  in  once  more  about  that  family  matter — 

Oldfield:   About  my  father's  objections  to  my  studying  art.   They  were  really 
very  valid  objections,  and  there  was  a  reason  behind  them.   He  had 
had  a  younger  brother  who  had  married  a  woman  who  claimed  to  be  an 
artist.   There  was  a  little  doubt  about  this  in  the  minds  of  some 
of  the  family  members,  because  they  usually  referred  to  her  in  an 
uncomplimentary  way  as  "artistic." 

Anyway,  she  had  married  my  father's  younger  brother  and  gone 
to  live  with  him  in  Nevada  City,  where  he  and  another  man  had  a 
mining  claim.  My  uncle  worked  as  a  night  watchman  in  one  of  the 


158 


Oldfield:  big  stamp  mills  up  there.   His  partner  in  the  mining  claim  boarded 
in  their  house. 

One  night  my  uncle  came  home  from  his  job,  for  which  he  carried  a 
gun,  and  found  the  other  man  there  with  his  wife.   He  opened  the 
door,  and  they  shot  each  other.   It  was  one  of  those  traditional 
stories  of  a  triangle,  I  guess,  although  I  had  no  knowledge  of  that 
at  the  time.   I  have  heard  remarks  since,  when  I've  been  a  little 
older,  which  lead  me  to  believe  that  there  was  a  problem  there,  and 
that  this  tragedy  had  a  very  strong  effect  on  my  father. 

This  is  the  reason  that  he  felt  that  women  who  studied  art 
came  to  no  good  ends .   Anyway — 

DuCasse:   You  mentioned  a  funeral — something  else  that  happened. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes.   There  was  a  funeral  in  Nevada  City  to  which  my  father  and 
his  sister  went.   They  reported — although  I  wasn't  present  at  the 
funeral;  I  remember  hearing  this  story  told  many,  many  times — 
about  the  grieving  widow  standing  between  the  two  coffins  and 
crying  for  her  two  darlings.   Naturally,  this  didn't  have  a  very 
good  effect  on  the  relatives  of  one  of  the  dead  men. 

There  was  another  reason  that  my  father  was  dubious  about  the 
wisdom  of  letting  me  study  art.  His  cousin,  with  whom  he  had  been 
domiciled  in  their  youth  by  their  mutual  grandmother,  who  was  my 
great-grandmother,  of  course,  was  Jimmy  Swinnerton,  who -later  acquired 
quite  a  reputation,  and  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  art  world. 
I  don't  know  when — I  guess — would  it  be  late  nineteenth  century, 
or  early  twentieth  century? 


159 


DuCasse:   Probably  early  twentieth. 

Oldfield:   Anyway,  Marty  told  me  he  knew  him,  too. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  he  did.   I  remember  hearing  him  speak  of  him. 

Oldfield:   Swinnerton  had  been  notorious.   I  remember  once  I  spoke  to  him  on 

the  phone  and  told  him — I  had  never  met  him,  and  I  wanted  to  contact 
him.  So  I  wrote  him  a  note  and  he  called  me.  I  told  him  who  I  was, 
and  he  said,  "It  looks  as  though  even  my  family  has  forgiven  me." 

But  his  reputation  was  distasteful  to  my  father,  who  was  a 
gentle,  idealistic  person.   This  was  another  reason  that  he  felt 
that  he  didn't  want  me  to  be  associated  with  the  arts.   So  he  was 
unwilling  to  finance  my  first  year  at  art  school  until  after  I  had 
agreed  to  go  to  Stanford  as  a  math  major.   That  had  fallen  through 
because  of  his  financial  problems.   He  could  not  finance  me  for 
the  first  year,  so  I  never  went  to  Stanford  at  all.   Instead,  I 
stayed  at  home  and  took  care  of  the  household  during  my  mother's 
illness.   After  about  two  years  of  that,  he  decided  that  I  had  earned 
the  right  to  do  what  I  wanted  and  allowed  me  my  first  choice.   So 
he  financed  me  for  at  least  my  first  year  at  Arts  and  Crafts.   And 
the  rest  of  that  is  on  the  tape. 

DuCasse:   That's  wonderful,  so  that  we  just  have  amplified.  And  that  brought 
in  Jimmy  Swinnerton,  which  we  didn't  have  the  first  time  around. 
Okay,  we'll  just  stop  this,  and  then  what  we'll  do — [tape  interruption] 


DuCasse:   Okay,  now  we're  going  to  be  recording.   Now  you  can  start  talking 
about  Kenneth  Rexroth. 


160 


Oldfield:   I  really  don't  have  very  much  to  say,  and  I  thought  it  was  already 
on  the  tape.   All  I  had  in  mind  to  say  was  that  I  was  visiting  up 
there  at  the  tower  when  this  organizing  was  going  on.   Otis  was 
being  difficult;  he  wasn't  going  along  with  their  ideas.   So  what 
has  stuck  in  my  memory  is  that  Rexroth  turned  to  him  and  said,  "The 
trouble  with  you,  Oldfield,  is  that  you're  an  anarchist."   [laughter] 

DuCasse:   What  did  Otis  have  to  say  to  that? 

Oldfield:  Well,  he  said  it  was  true.   [laughter]   He  said  it  was  true,  but 
it  didn't  make  him  a  good  candidate  for  being  organized.   I  think 
they  just  went  their  separate  ways. 

Well,  wait  a  minute.   There's  a  card  around  here  somewhere — he 
was  a  member  of  the  guild  or  artists'  union,  local  whatever  it  was. 
There  was  such  a  thing  formed.   Somewhere  or  other,  I  have  Otis' 
membership  card.   But  it  didn't  last  very  long.  When  it  came  time 
to  pay  the  dues,  the  artists  didn't  do  it.   [laughs]   So  that  was 
the  end  of  that.   I  don't  remember  too  clearly  about  it. 

But  there  were  a  lot  of  things  that  went  on  that  discouraged 
Otis  from  doing  the  things  that  people  wanted  him  to  do  to  be 
enterprising.   I  remember  there  was  one  occasion  when  Otis  was 
involved  in  a  scheme  or  an  arrangement — I  don't  know  that  it  was  a 
scheme — with  Ray  Bertrand  to  produce  lithographs.   They  hired  a 
young  man  to  represent  them,  to  peddle  the  lithographs,  for  which 
he  was  to  get  a  small  percentage  of  the  purchase  price.   Otis  made 
several  lithos.   The  peddler — I  can't  remember  his  name — was  supplied 
with  several  prints  from  each  artist,  and  he  absconded  with  them. 


161 


Oldfield:   So  this  was  another  attempt  to  be  financially  sophisticated  and 
enterprising  which  backfired,  because  he  just  lost  his  work. 

This  sort  of  thing  happens  to  artists  all  the  time.   It's  not 
only  Otis;  I  know  it  happens  to  others  too. 

DuCasse:   Yes,  unfortunately,  it  has. 

Cravath:    I  think  this  is  the  time  to  bring  you  up  to  date  on  this  Alexander 
business. 

Oldfield:   Oh,  yes,  I'm  interested. 

Cravath:   Did  I  talk  to  you  about  it? 

DuCasse:    I  don't  think  you  did.   Did  you  want  this  on  the  tape? 

Cravath:   Oh,  no. 

DuCasse:        Okay,  we'll  stop   this   then. 


[end   tape  6,    side  B] 


162 


CONCLUSION 


Helen  Oldfield  remained  in  a  convalescent  hospital  for  the  last  months 
of  her  life.   She  rallied  at  one  point — but  this  rally  was  not  sustained. 

Ruth  Cravath  and  I  had  two  visits  with  her  during  September,  to  show  her 
the  transcript  and  to  get  answers  to  a  few  questions  that  had  arisen  between 
the  taping  session  and  the  typing  of  the  transcript.  She  was  pleased  to  see 
it  "in  black  and  white,"  and  enjoyed  having  parts  of  it  read  to  her.  We  are 
most  grateful  for  her  daughter  Jayne's  help  in  proofreading  the  transcript 
for  any  errors  or  additions  she  would  notice. 

Helen's  continued  weakness  was  a  great  concern  to  us  all,  but  in  a  special 
way  for  Ruth  and  I,  as  we  had  so  hoped  she  could  see  the  final  stage,  in 
printed  form,  which  would  have  been  such  a  great  satisfaction  to  her  as  well 
as  to  us  for  her.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  On  November  16,  1981,  Helen  passed 
away  peacefully.   She  has  joined  Otis  and  the  many  friends  who  preceeded  her 
into  the  next  world. 

Her  devoted  daughter,  Jayne  Blatchly;   arranged  an  intimate  ceremony  of 
remembrance  for  Helen  in  Jayne's  home  on  Tuesday,  November  24,  1981.   Among 
the  San  Francisco  art  colony  friends  who  shared  with  the  family  a  touching 
and  most  suitable  remembrance  of  Helen  were:   Antonio  and  Grace  Sotomayor, 
Ruth  Cravath  Wakefield,  Mireille  Piazzoni  Wood,  Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse, 
and  Terry  St.  John  of  the  art  department  staff  of  the  Oakland  Museum.   It 
was  a  communion  of  spirits,  not  sad,  but  so  grateful  for  the  friendship  Helen 
gave  to  each  of  us  with  such  warmth  and  love. 

Helen  had  always  minimized  her  own  significance  as  an  artist  because  of 

Otis  being  in  the  forefront  all  their  life  together.  Helen  was  a  good  painter 
in  her  own  right,  and  kept  up  her  own  work  after  Otis  died.  An  exhibition  of 

her  painting,  organized  by  Jayne,  was  held  in  November  and  December  of  1981, 

at  the  Laurel  Heights  Convalescent  Hospital,  where  Helen  had  lived  those  last 

months  of  her  life.   Several  of  her  paintings  were  sold,  a  tribute  to  her  own 

ability  as  an  artist. 

We  are  grateful  indeed  that  there  was  time  to  do  the  essential  phase  of 
this  oral  history  of  Otis  and  Helen  Oldfield  while  she  was  still  with  us. 
It  is  a  precious  legacy,  along  with  her  own  paintings,  from  Helen  Clark  Oldfield. 

Last,  but  not  at  all  least,  we  owe  a  special  debt  of  gratitude  to  Walter 
Nelson-Rees  and  James  Goran,  who,  out  of  their  great  interest  in,  and  knowledge 
of,  California  art  as  collectors  and  scholars,  gave  generously  the  money  to 
have  the  tapes  transcribed.   Their  contribution  was  most  essential  for  the 
ultimate  completion  of  this  worthy  project. 

Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse 
Ruth  Cravath  Wakefield 

January  1982 

Piedmont,  California 


163 


EPILOGUE 

It  is  always  hard  to  look  back  on  a  life  that  has  been  lived 
before  one's  own  eyes  and  judge  its  success.  My  mother,  Helen 
Oldfield,  would  be  judged  as  "the  best"  by  myself  and  anyone 
who  has  ever  known  her.  Not  strangely,  she  would  never  give 
herself  such  a  rating.  On  reading  this  fascinating  transcript, 
I  am  able  to  see  how  important  the  artist's  wife  was  to  the 
budding  art  community  of  her  time.  My  own  memory  of  mother  goes 
much  farther.  She  supported  and  advanced  a  noted  California 
artist  and  developed  her  own  strong  talents  as  well.  Though  all 
but  a  few  of  her  last  years  were  spent  in  practical  areas  (posing 
for  hundreds  of  hours  for  her  husband  and  teaching  art  at  the 
Hamlin  School),  she  never  lost  her  drive  to  create  visually.  When 
at  last  she  had  time  to  apply  herself  to  her  own  art  vork,  she 
developed  a  style  so  personal  and  distinctive,  one  wishes  she  had 
had  another  life  to  give  to  it.  In  this  area  lies  the  crux  of 
divergence  in  success  judging.  From  mother's  viewpoint,  she  never 
succeeded  in  "getting  anything  done".  In  my  viewpoint,  she 
accomplished  several  lifetimes  at  once. 

Because  many  facets  of  Helen's  life  were  overshadowed  by  her 
husband,  I  am  deeply  grateful  the  Oral  History  Transcript  was 
completed  before  she  had  a  crippling  stroke.  Her  last  few  months 
were  uplifted  by  the  editing  of  this  material  with  the  help  of 
her  oldest  and  dearest  friends,  as  well  as  her  first  one-man  show 
at  the  nursing  home  where  she  spent  her  last  days.  (Exhibition 
announcement  next  page). 

On  November  22,  1981,  a  final  tribute  to  Helen  was  held  at  my  home 
for  her  closest  friends.  Participants  included  Ruth  Cravath  and 
Mirelle  Piazzoni  Wood,  who  were  present  at  Helen's  wedding  to  Otis 
Oldfield  fifty  five  years  ago.  The  highlight  of  the  ceremony  was 
"A  Song  For  Helen";  the  Brahams  Lullaby  sung  in  German,  accompanied 
on  the  lute.  Memories  mixed  with  tears  as  we  added  a  pinch  of 
ashes  to  the  urn,  knowing  Helen  had  been  with  us  in  spirit.  The 
urn  will  be  placed  at  the  Neptune  Society's  Columbarium  in  San 
Francisco  to  welcome  all  pilgrims. 


Jayne  (Oldfield)  Blatchly 
January  15,  1982 


163a 


Helen 


Helen  Regina  Clark  was  born  in  Santa  Rosa, 
in  1902. 

After  graduation  from  High  School,  Helen 
attended  the  College  of  Arts  and  Crafts  in 
Oakland,  from  1922  to  1924. 

In  1925,  Helen  met  the  internationally 
famous  artist,  Otis  Oldfield  while  attending 
his  classes  at  the  California  School  of 
Fine  Arts  in  San  Francisco.  Helen  married 
Otis  Oldfield  in  1926  and  had  two  daughters 
shortly  thereafter. 

Helen  lired  on  Telegraph  Hill  and  Russian 
Hill  with  her  family  during  the  start  of  her 
teaching  career  at  the  Sarah  Dix  Ham 1 in 
School,  where  she  headed  the  Art  Department. 
She  taught  at  the  Hamlin  School  from  1946 
to  1968. 

The  Oldfields  moved  to  a  small  house  on 
Joost  Avenue  in  1960  and  there,  after  the 
death  of  her  husband,  Helen  began  her  own 
separate  artistic  career. 

Helen  showed  her  work  regularly  at  the 
Godfrey  Gallery  in  the  Mark  Hopkins  Hotel; 
the  Arts  and  Crafts  Co-op  in  Berkeley  and 
the  Sonoma  Valley  Arts  Center.  She  had 
her  greatest  success  with  the  Valley  Art 


Gallery  in  Walnut  Creek  where  she  rented 
and  sold  her  work  on  a  continuing  basis 
from  1972  to  1980. 

Helen  was  an  active  member  of  the  Artists 
Equity  Association's  local  chapter,  working 
on  projects  for  artists  with  her  friends 
in  the  area. 

The  pictures  shown  here  through  January 
first,  1982,  are  a  sample  of  the  work 
Helen  has  done  from  1940  to  1980. 

Each  picture  is  an  original  oil  painting 
on  a  standard  size  canvas  board.  The 
smaller  size  works  sell  for  $50.00  each 
and  the  larger  works  sell  for  $75.00. 
These  pictures  are  easy  and  inexpensive 
to  frame  at  home  with  ready  made  frames 
and  make  colorful  additions  to  any  room. 

Make  checks  payable  directly  to  Helen 
Oldfield  and  indicate  at  bottom  of  check 
painting  number  marked  on  the  back  of 
each  work  for  sales  identification. 

We,  the  staff  and  Helen's  family,  hope  you 
like  these  pictures  and  find  they  add 
brightness  to  your  holiday  visits  to 
Laurel  Heights  Convalescent  Hospital. 


PAINTINGS 


LAUREL  HEIGHTS  CONVALESCENT  HOSPITAL  2740  CALIFORNIA  ST.   SAN  FRANCISCO,   CA.   94115 


164 


INDEX  —  Helen  Oldfield 

Alaska,  76,81,83,8? 

Alaska  Commercial  Co  .,  82 
Alaska  Journals,  72 
Albright,  Gertrude,  80 
Allenson, Bertram,  80 
Alta, Oldfield  summer  home,  155 
Anchorage,  83 
Archipenko, Madame,  Il6 
Arnautoff, Victor,  1^-8,  151 
Art  Association,  151 
Artists  Council,  L5I 
Artists  Equity,  151 
Artists  Guild,  151 

Beaux  Arts  Gallery,  6l,  70,  80 

Bellows,  George,  15^ 

Bering  Sea,  82 

Bertrand,Ray,  160 

Best  Academy,  52,  136 

Best,  Arthur,  52,136 

Best, Virginia,  52 

Bigin's  Restaurant,  116 

Birge,  Lydia,  Otis'  mother's  name, 

the  Blendings,  22 

Boat .The  Louise. for  trip  to  Alaska,  82 
Broadwell,Edith,6 

Boynton  ,Ray ,  35 »  1^8 
Bufano, Benny,  9,13,21,96 
Bureau, Noel,  66-68 
Bureau  Of  Fisheries,  83 


165 


California  College  of  Arts  And  Crafts,  6,7,8,9,38, ?I, 89, o4, 95, 128, 

138,140,159 

California  School  Of  Fine  Arts,  9,12,62,63,89,136,142 
Canon  Kip  Mission,  35,35 
Charles  Campbell  Gallery,  128 
Clark, Edgar,  brother  of  Helen  Qldfield,  86 
Clark,  Ruth,  sister  of  Helen  OLdfield,  8? 
Coit  Tower,  ?6 
Colt  Press,  73,  74 
Coppa's  Restaurant,  Il6 
Covarrubias , Miguel , 147 
Cowell,  Henry,  118,119 

Cravath,Ruth,  44,  98,  99,  100,  101,  102,  103,  104 
Crocker  Art  Gallery,  129 
Cuneo,  Ethel,  122 
Cuneo,  Rinaldo,  112,  Il4,  115,  122,  123 

Dahl,Bill,  149 

Dean,  Mallette,  74 

Dear,  Ellen,  29 

Del  Pino,  Helen(Horst) ,  19,  123,  126,  127 

Del  Pino,  Moya,  123,  124,  125,  anecdote  of  copy  of  Goya  painted  by 

Moya,I26-l49 

De  Young  Museum,  93 

Diebenkorn,  131 

Dixon,  Maynard,  43,  6l,  64,  115,  116,  117,  128 

Dover, Scooner,  78 

Duff,  Lucille,  45 

Ducasse,  Micaela  M.  ,  2 

Dunham,  Pranck,  23 

Farm,  Santa  Rosa,  8l 
Fort  Mason,  89,  9! 
Francis,  Sam,  132 


166 


Gee,  Helena  32,  145 

Gee,  Yun,  30,  31,  32,  144 

Gerstle,  Bill,  82,  84,  Il6 

Gold  Run.Oldfield  summer  home,  155 

Grabhorn ,  Ed ,  75 , 76 

Grabhorn, Jane,  73,  7^,  81 

Grabhorn  Press,  75,  81 

Hamilton, Leah,  9^ 

Hamlin.E^ith,  117 

Hamlin  School,  75,  87,  106,  140 

Haug, Eddie,  J6 

Horst,  Helen, (Del  Pino),  19,123,  126,  127 

Jayne, (Blatchly) , daughter  of  H.&  O.Oldfield, 129 
Joost  Street  Home,I07-IIO 
Juneau ,  83 
Justema,  Billy,  145 

Kandinsky,  134 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  75 
Kuhn,  Walt,  17,  77 

Labaudt  Gallery,  129 

Labaudt,  Lucien,  17,  119,  120,  128, killed  in  Burma, 120, I2i 

Lange,  Dorothea  ,28,  29,  117 

Leaves  Of  Grass.  74 

Legion  Of  Honor  Museum,  76 

Leibes,  Dorothy,  93 

Leonardo (DaVinci ),  66 

Macbeth  Galleries,  79 
Macky,  Spencer,  21,  22,  43,  95,  96,  97 
Martinez,  Elsie,  2 

Mar tine z.Xavier,  2,  7,  9,  12,  14, 19,20,21,22,43,55,71,79, 130,132, 133, 

134,135,  154,159 


167 


McTeague.by  Frank  Norris,  72-87 

Massingill, Floyd  and  Shirley,  138 

Matthews,  Arthur, 136 

Matisse, Henri ,  I4l 

Mil jarick, Louis,  18 

Meyer,  Frederick  H. , 16, 18,94,95 

Mey$r  ,  Letitia,  (Mrs . Frederick ) ,  I? ,  18 ,  ?I 

Meyer , Letitia(Babs ) , I? 

Modern  Gallery,  70 

Montague, Ward,  13 

Montrose  Gallery,  77 

Moore  Ship  Yards,  89 

Nevada  City,  157,  158 
Novelty  Sign  Co.,  II,  12 

Oakland  Museum,  144,  145,  146 
Officer, Mr. .Instructor  at  C.C.A.C.,15 
Ohloff,  Henry,  29,  30,  43 
Oldfield.Jayne,  129 

Oldfield,  Helen,  (Clark) , Birth,  I, "birthplace, 8?, Earthquake,  I,  Father  em- 
grates  from  England, I, grandmother's  death, 3, family  moves  after  earth 
quake,  3, public  schooling, 3, 4, 5, Arts  and  Crafts, 6,  Novelty  Sign  Co, first 
job, II, 12, maiden  name, 12, Otis 'courtship, 25, 26, 27, marriage, 27, Ceremony, 35, 
early  married  life, 3 7, taught  at  Hamlin  School, 87, Volunteer  wook  during 
WWII  for  Red  Cross, 92-93,  Nursery  School  Helen  and  Ruth  Cravath  had  to 
gether,  98-104, Helen's  illness,  107,108, move  to  the  home  on  Joost  Street, 
I07-IIO,  about  her  father's  objections  to  her  studying  art, 157 
Oldfield. Otis.  9, 12 ,14,18—25, 29 ,30, Paris  clothes, 32, 33, 34,39, Otis 'atti 
tude  towards  his  children, 42 -43, bookbinding, 44,  Parents ,46-47,  grand 
parents,  48-49,  birth, 47,  schooling  in  Sacramento, 49, works  as  cook  on  cattle 
ranch, 50, at  Argonaut  Hotel, 51, Leaves  for  France, 52, Paris, 54-56, Courtship 
of  Helen, 57, Parillia  Ball, 57, 58, Learned  bookbinding, 64, 65, attempts  at 


168 


curing  human  skin  for  use  in  bookbinding, 67-69, home  on  Telegraph  Hill,?!. 
?6, New  York  Exhibition, 77, Sacramento  River  Trip  on  Scooner  Dover, ?8, 
trip  for  Union  Fish  Co  to  Alaska, 80-86, Worked  at  Moore  Ship  Yards  as  a 
draughtsman  during  WWII,89-9Qthe  way  Otis  worked, 87-89, studio  on  RUssion 
Hill, 97, move  from  Telegragh  Hill, 98, Rents  room  in  Monkey  Block, 104, ar 
ranges  studio  in  home  on  Russian  Hill, 105,  Otis'  interest  in  fresco  tech 
nique,  Il6,  131, not  an  abstractionist, 132,  as  teacher , 152, date  of  his 
death, 86. 
Oliviera, Mona, 128 
Oliviera , Nathan, 128 , 130 
Orozco,Jose  Clemente,l4?-48, 
Owens  Valley,  40 

Palmer , Julius , 23 
Parillia  Art  Ball, 57 
Pearl  Harbor, 73 
Perun, Steve, 138 
Piazzoni , Gottardo , 6l , III 
Picasso,  I^-I 
Poole, Nelson, 119, 122 
Poulanc,II9,i22,  128 
Pribiloff  Islands, 82 

Randolph,  Lee,  96 

Rawlings,Miss,    ? 

Red  Bluff,    ?8 

Red  Cross .Bulletin  of,  92,93 

Renoir,  I4l 

Rexroth, Kenneth,  I5I,I59,I60 

Rhoda, daughter  of  H.&  0.  Oldfield, 102 

Rivera , Di  ego , 1^2 , 1^? , 148 

Rivera,  Prida, 

Robinson,  Jim, 

Roche, Madame,  65. 

Roche, Marcel,  65 

Roosevelt ,  President , 


169 


Rose, Stanley ,69 
Roth, Bill, 73, 74 
Ryan, Beatrice , 24 , 28 

Sacramento  trip, 78 

Salinger, Pierre,  28,29,30,32,36 

SanFRancisco  Call ,152 ,153 

SanFRancisco  City  College, 146 

SanFRancisco  Museum, 93 

Seward,83,84 

Sister  Leonard,  106 

Smith, Mass el,  131 

St. John, Terry,  156 

St.  Mary  The  Virgin, Church  of, 29 

St.  Rose  School, 106 

Stackpole.Adele,  6l 

S tackpole , Jeannette , 6i , 114, 115 

Stackpole, Ralph, 28, 29, 60, III, 113, 114,136, 137, 143, 148 

Stock  Exchange  Club,80,l42 

S winnert on , James , ( Jimmy ) , 158 , 159 

Taylor, Paul,  117 
Treasure  Island, 146 
Union  F^sh  Co. ,80 
Ureska,59 

Von  Stroheim.ERic,  66 

Wacs,9I 

Wakefield,Beth,  44 

Wakefi eld, Ruth  Cravath,her  grandchildren, 44; see  also,Cravath,Ruth 

West, Isabel , 12 , 136, 137 

White, Clifford,  19 

Wirtenberger , Carol , 19 , 28 , 64 , 124 

Wright , S . McDonald , 145 


Ruth  Cravath 


Born  in  Chicago  in  1902,  and  educated  at  the  Chicago  Art 
Insitute.  Studied  at  the  California  School  of  Fine  Arts 
in  the  1920s,  where  she  was  a  student  of  Ralph  Stackpole's. 

Well-known  sculptor  and  teacher. 

Charter  member  of  the  San  Francisco  Society  of  Women  Artists, 
and  long  a  member  of  the  San  Francisco  Art  Commission. 

Her  work  is  in  private  and  public  collections.   Notable 
public  works  include  the  Starr  King  statue  recently 
reinstalled  at  the  First  Unitarian  Church,  San  Francisco; 
the  "Timeless  Family,"  IBM,  San  Jose;  and  the  Saint  Francis 
at  Candlestick  Park,  San  Francisco. 


Micaela  Martinez  DuCasse 


Daughter  of  Xavier  Martinez  and  Elsie  Whi taker  Martinez. 
Educated  under  her  father  at  California  College  of  Arts 
and  Crafts,  1928-31. 

Studied  fresco  painting  with  Victor  Arnautoff  in  1938, 
and  sculpture  with  Ralph  Stackpole  in  1938-9,  at  San 
Francisco  Art  Institute. 

Liturgical  mural  commission  in  1939  at  St.  Boniface  Church, 
San  Francisco.   Career  in  liturgical  arts  through  mid-1950s. 
Founding  member,  Catholic  Art  Forum  of  San  Francisco. 

Member,  art  department  faculty,  Lone  Mountain  College; 
chairman,  1955-78. 

Organized  a  survey  course  in  history  of  California  art, 
as  a  preview  to  the  opening  of  the  Oakland  Museum  in 
September  of  1969.   The  research  and  knowledge  obtained  in 
preparing  this  course  was  background  for  the  oral  history 
interviewing  of  Helen  Clark  Oldfield. 


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