Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Wilson. So artist Wanda Gog is another that has been on my list for quite a while. If you look at her art, it's pretty natural to want to know who the person behind it is. Alice Gregory, writing for The New Yorker in twenty fourteen, described Gog's work this way, which I thought was quite beautiful quote fairy tale familiar, but also strange and unforgettably specific. Gog's work is high contrast.
It's mostly black and white, and it runs the gamut from illustrations for children's books, which she also wrote, to intriguing still lifes that look anything but still. And her personality in her life story is equally enthralling, from her very unusual childhood to her quest for independence as an artist. We also have the benefit with Gog of covering a subject that was a prolific diarist, so we do know a lot about her inner thoughts and the details of
her day to day life. And because of this wealth of information, and because I just find her wildly intriguing. She is a two parter, so today we're going to talk about her early life up through art school and her early professional career, and then on Wednesday's episode we will talk about the fame and success that she had starting in the late nineteen twenties. Wanda Hazel Gog was born on March eleventh, eighteen ninety three. She was the
first child of Anton and Elizabeth Biebelgog. Elizabeth went by Lissi. Anton had moved to the US in eighteen seventy two from Bohemia, which at the time was part of Austria. He was thirteen and had moved to the town of New Ulm, Minnesota. Lissy, who was ten years younger than he was, moved there just a year after he did from her birthplace of Hairsburg, Pennsylvania. Her parents, like Anton's, were from Bohemia.
Anton stayed in Newulm, which had a large Austrian German population. As an adult, he had always envisioned a life as an artist for himself, but that wasn't an avenue that was really going to offer him a dependable living in Newolm. Still, he incorporated creativity into his work as best he could,
working as a photographer, a painter, and a decorator. One of his most prominent works was a mural that he painted on commission for the World's Fair the Yrwanda was born that was showing the Dakota attacking New Elm in eighteen sixty two. This was commissioned as the Sioux attacking New Elm, just to point out how things have changed and how they kind of made up their own versions of what had happened. After that fair, the mural was
moved to the Minnesota state Capitol. Wanda later wrote of this work, which was, of course somewhat controversial, quote, I have often wondered with what mixed emotions Papa must have made these picks. Naturally, he sympathized with the pioneers, who threw no fault of their own, had been so brutally attacked, and yet I know that he loved the Indians also and felt they had been wronged. Still, it made money, and Anton needed that money as he was starting a family.
Thanks to that income, he was able to build a Queen Anne style house in New Olm at two twenty six North Washington Street, but practicality never dampened his or Lyssi's love of the arts, and they strongly encouraged their children's creativity in every way. Anton and Lissie had six more children after Wanda, Stella, Delhi, Howard, Asta, the Znelda who went by Tussy and Flavia. The early years of
the Gog family sound quite beautiful and lively. Despite money being tight, the kids always had art projects, both at home and when visiting their nearby relatives. Apparently, when the kids found out that not everyone drew as part of their day to day life, they were taken aback and really a little confused. Wanda mentioned in her diary how odd it was that other families didn't think of quote, drawing and painting as essential activities as eating and sleeping.
Wanda very clearly admired her father and deeply appreciated the artistic encouragement that their household offered to everyone in the family. She wrote, quote, in our home, artistic expression of all kinds was taken for granted. Our father, Anton Gog, was an artist, and in our mother's family, the creative urge took the form of painting, modeling, and fine cabinet work. We children, six girls and a boy, all drew, and
most of us wrote stories and poems. Anton Gog, though always in delicate health, worked hard and kept his large family in modest comfort. During the week, for his livelihood, he decorated houses and churches, but on Sundays, for his inner satisfaction, he painted pictures in his attic studio. We children had learned early how to behave when someone was making something, and were sometimes allowed in his studio while
he painted there. I liked this. There was a silent, serious happiness in the air, which, although I had no words for it, then I recognized as the ineffable joy of creation. I had already experienced this exaltation myself at times, so I knew that on Sundays my father was happy in his soul. But unfortunately, that happy home, filled with the joy of creativity, did not last forever. In May nineteen oh eight, Anton died of tuberculosis, plunging the family
into a period of grief and financial uncertainty. Wanda's diaries from her adolescence offer some insight into her drive to make money and also her feelings about her own artistic integrity. Her published diaries began on August twelfth, nineteen oh eight, when she would have been fifteen so that was just six months or so after her father's death. The first entry makes her mindset pretty clear. Quote.
I sent one of my pictures to the journal Junior Toddy's hanged our dollies and forgot to put my address on it, so I sent another envelope with my address on it the same day. I send a story Lose Soap, Bubble Party, and a picture to illustrate it to McCall's. Some time ago, I sent these three articles to the Youth Companion Story, Golden Brooch, picture, great Grandmother's Chest, poem, great Grandmother's Chest. I wonder how the whole thing will turn out. A few days ago, Margaret Kelly told me
that Martha Schmid didn't believe I drew freehand. She thinks I trace trace, indeed, when I don't even care much for copying.
I love how indignant she is an me that she's like how dare yes. On a more serious note, she also notes very carefully in the early entries any money that she makes from her writing, in any care prizes she and her siblings win in competitions like at the County Fair. She was very keenly aware of the loss of her father as a breadwinner as well, of course,
as a beloved family member. She mentions at one point that the money she has collected from various winnings will pay for shoes because she has outgrown hers and she cannot wear them any longer without pain. And this concern over finances may be linked to something that she took directly from her last moments with her father. His last words were what Papa was unable to accomplish, Wanda will have to finish. So whether he meant that in terms of artistic expression or in taking care of the family
has been interpreted differently by different historians. But either way, that's a lot to put on a fifteen year old shoulders. And to make.
Matters worse, her mother Lissy, was not in good health, so Wanda truly emerged at that point as the family's breadwinner when she was a high school age teenager. We'll talk about Wanda's daily life and the struggles of the Goog family after Anton's death, after we pause for a sponsor break. When Wanda wasn't drawing or writing material that she hoped to sell to bring money in, she was
taking care of her six siblings. In one diary entry, she writes about a rumor that a classmate shared with her, quote, fern Fisher was here yesterday and she said that somebody told her that I don't do anything but read and draw.
I guess so. I wonder if washing dishes, sweeping about six times a day, picking up things the baby and Howard throw around are reading and I've never heard of taking care of babies, combing little sisters, cleaning bedrooms and attics as being classed as drawing. I wonder what else people will say about me.
She also talks about making dinner when her mother, who had recently given birth to the last child of the family, needed to sleep. These entries about mealmaking are really saddening. She describes not having much food to cook with and having to figure out how to stretch what ingredients they could afford, and how to divide the food among all
the kids so everyone got some. But there are also delighted mentions of books she read, art her siblings, made gifts from relatives, etc. But always always the careful accounting of the money she makes through her magazine submissions and odd jobs like making party place cards on commission, and how much she is able to give her mother to keep the family afloat. In nineteen oh nine, sixteen year
old Wanda had a professional break. The Minneapolis Journal published a ten part series titled Robbie, Bobby and Mother Gooseland and paid her fifty dollars for it. As Wanda neared the end of high school and plotted a potential make do job as a teacher, she also dreamed, as anyone would, of a life where she might not have to take such employment, noting in her diary quote, if I ever married, next to marrying for love, I shall marry so that I won't have to bother myself with financial matters, at
least I think so now. She did get a teaching job in nineteen twelve after graduating from high school, but her eye was still on an art career, and there were some fortuitous events that made that dream possible. She had never stopped entering her artwork in competitions, and she won a fair number of them, enough to be mentioned in the papers on several occasions, and those mentions got
in front of the right eyes. Tyler McWhorter, the head of the Saint Paul's School of Art, had told Wanda that she could attend on a scholarship and that she only had to pay for living expenses, but that was way out of the realm of possibility financially. As Wanda put it, quote, which is certainly dandy, but the school experiment goes first. So mister mcwarter, great deal of thanks and a pile of regrets to you. But then in nineteen thirteen, a businessman from Saint Paul named Charles Wesky
visited the family home. Wanda knew he was coming to talk to her about art school and wrote in her diary quote, the martyr like act for me to play would be to teach school and deny myself everything until I had the family properly settled. Then I could begin my career in life, however small it might be. But oh, I'm only human, and I do want to go to
the university or to art school. Weshkey, who knew mcwarter and had been in touch with him about Wanda's situation, told Wanda that he had been a fan of her father Anton's work, and he had seen her art in the paper and wanted to help her family. He pledged his own financial support to cover her room and board and whatever art supplies she needed. So she was off to art school.
Wanda's diary entry about this whole thing happening is very charming. Quote, well it's over, mister Weshke's visit, I mean, and I'm to go to art school and such charming arrangements. I don't even have to work for my board. I shall probably stay at the YWCA and be independent, have a definite amount of money to put in the bank by someone or a number of someone's, and not do anything
but do the things I was meant to do. As he expresses it, he impressed it fully upon us that his was no charity work, but that he was predestined, so to speak, to do what he was doing. He is doing it for art's sake and for humanity's sake, he thinks, Oh, how can he that I will repay humanity a thousandfold for what is being done for me. He knows just how I feel about things, simply taking words out of my mouth.
We should mention, though, that while this was obviously a piece of good fortune for Wanda, it meant that another member of her family would have to take on the burden of bringing in money for the family. That person was her sister, Stella, who like Wanda, got a teaching
job after high school. While money was in short supply, education was prioritized enough that none of the God children left school to work before graduating, so it was good timing that Stella was joining the workforce as this opportunity came to Wanda. After a year at art school, Wanda started working at a commercial art studio called BUCKB. Mears, which was something that the school had arranged, like a
little internship. But it seems like there was a miscommunication here because Wanda had not realized that this was an unpaid internship. This wasn't really tenable, and she didn't tell her family initially because she didn't want.
To worry them. But then before long she was informed that she would be collecting a salary, and she didn't know it at the time, but her benefactor, Charles Weshkey, had stepped in again. The firm was not paying her sealery. He was because he believed the experience she was gaining was valuable enough that she needed to stay. She didn't find out about this arrangement until years later.
God clearly grappled with what people expected of her, as any young person in her position might she wrote in the autumn that she was working in her internship. Quote, they people have been in a most terrible suspense all the time for fear that I wouldn't get to the point where I would earn money. Paula reminded me of the time she had told me to draw magazine covers and said that was the result of hearing some remarks. They expect me to make a great deal of money
and sort of along the side to become famous. And when I want neither fame nor money, ding it, ding it, ding it, I wish I had iron to bite, or would to gnaw, or logs to chop. I know I need the money, but I can't sit here serenely listening while they lose the sight of the thing. I am
afraid I shall have to disappoint them. If I were to become a popular magazine illustrator, they would undoubtedly say Wanda has made good, Whereas if I turned my art over to life and win no fame, they will say she had talent, but she didn't use it in the right way. I like that she envisions herself like a perpetual starving artist. In a moment, we're going to talk about another patron who saw Wanda Dog's potential and encouraged her career. But first we will hear from the sponsors
who contribute to our careers by supporting the show. After a few months of her internship, Wanda actually managed to get another patron.
That was Hershel V. Jones, who was the managing editor at the Minneapolis Journal. Jones took Wanda under his wing and he paid for her to enroll at the Minneapolis School of Art. She commented on the main difference that she noticed at the new school as compared to her prior art school, and also manages to be very self confident in doing so. Quote, in the Minneapolis School they go at things more methodically than in Saint Paul. Especially our teacher, mister Phoenix. I don't know but that he
is a trifle too methodical. However, I don't think I am in danger. I believe too sincerely in what I am fighting for, and I fight no less sincerely for that which I believe to be drawn dangerously far from the myself track. For half artists, his method may be good. I mean for people who can never hope to go beyond a certain limit in art, and people who have not enough good, sound originality to lead them into the right paths.
During this time, she also ruminated on what it meant to her to have ambition. In the winter of a first year in Minneapolis, she wrote, quote, it's cowardly to be overly modest. In fact, I think many artists are modest for just that reason. For instance, a mine would be afraid to say, if I want, I can make people sit up and notice my work. He's afraid he can't live up to it. He's afraid of facing ignominious defeat. Ding What if you don't succeed, you at least don't
have to be ashamed of your aim. My aim is limitless. That I will never reach it, I know, but I'm going to get as near there as I can. That will keep me running all the rest of my life, believe me. Throughout all of these ups and downs, gog had a close friend that she had met when he was a medical student who visited her high school during what was called University Week. So that was a week that was sponsored by the University of Minnesota, and it
offered lectures for anyone to attend. And his name was Edgar Herman. Though when her diary was published. Later in her life, she changed his name to armand Mrod. She always insisted that their relationship was entirely innocent and platonic, but there are entries in her diary that suggest that she initially had a crush on him and then eventually
developed more serious feelings. The two of them met when Edgar saw her drawing during one of the university week events and he managed to sit near her to watch her work. Edgar opened Wanda's world up to a great deal of culture that she had not had access to in her life in New Ulm. He introduced her to things like opera and to literature, and their relationship was quite long, although it seemed as though they often were in different places in terms of what each of them
wanted out of it. So she, like I said, obviously at some points had feelings for him. But after one of their early outings, which kind of seems like a date but it was unclear, I think to both of them, and Wanda recorded in her diary quote just before I went into the door at the YW I warned him not to get too romantic love.
For some reason, still, Edgar became a cornerstone in her life for a while, and when she left New Olm for Sane Paul, and particularly after she went to Minneapolis School of Art, where he was not at the school
but in the city. He introduced her also to his circle of friends, and this kind of gave her a whole new cosmopolitan life, and Wanda really did seem to fall in love with Edgar, genuinely in love, but by the time she realized it, he had come to see her exclusively as a friend, and then by nineteen fifteen they had largely stopped socializing. After her friendship with Edgar had essentially ended, Wanda found a new, similarly intense friendship
in another art student, Adolf Den. Den also expanded her worldview, but in a very different way from Edgar. The two of them had met in a group called the John Ruskin Society, which met for weekly salon style discussions where group members hashed out a lot of social issues. Wanda did not back down from arguments in the group, and Adolf was a ready debate partner who would challenge her
and help her work through her own ideas. He was also much more politically active and anti establishment than Wanda, and over the course of their relationship, she became more involved in that world, eventually embracing socialism and feminism. This was harder than it may sound. We might think of artists as inherently liberal, and Wanda had certainly grown up in a home where artistic expression was valued. But it was also a very small town, and Gog's positions on
various social issues were sometimes described as Victorian. She didn't believe in sex before marriage, for example, although that would change, and she was not interested in intoxicants. That's actually something I want to talk about on Friday. But it was really her thoughts on art and specifically artistic talent that
she and Adolf debated early on. Gog thought that talent was something that you were simply born with and that it would carry true artists through to recognition, regardless of where they came from or what trends shifted the tastes of the art world. She also thought that artists didn't have a responsibility to anything or any one but their gift in terms of how they used that natural skill. There is also some conceit at play in her position.
She felt very clearly that she was better than other artists, and she also thought people who were not artistically gifted should just defer to people who were Adolf introduced the argument that some people get better opportunities than others, and some of that was due to social standing, and that artists that did get a platform had a responsibility to use it in ways that educated viewers and help them
understand new ideas. And these differences of opinion, which seemed to be conversations and debates that went on for months and years with the two of them, did not sour Wandagog on Adolph Ben. Their ongoing debates really formed the backbone of their relationship.
During art school, Gog also managed to make money with design Commision, and she sent money home to supplement Stella's income and help the family. The third Gog daughter, Tussy, had also graduated and took a teaching job to help out as well. In nineteen seventeen, another huge blow came to the Gog family, which is that Elizabeth died. This is not entirely unexpected. During the Christmas of nineteen sixteen, it was apparent to Wanda that Lissie was not well.
She returned to school in January, but almost immediately turned around and went home again after receiving a message from her sisters that Lissie was rapidly declining. While Wanda was a young adult of twenty four at the time, a lot of the kids were not. Flavia was only nine years old. It fell to Wanda, and also to Stella and Tussy to just figure out what the future would be for the family. And while that was being figured out, Wanda returned to art school so she could finish her
program in Minneapolis. Once school was finished, she her sister, and her friend Adolph Den worked on the Gog House in New Olm to get it ready for sale. Stella and Tessie didn't want to stay. They wanted to move to Minneapolis, and the younger four kids spent another autumn and winter in Newolm because the house had not sold. At that point, the oldest among those four was kind of at an age where they could take care of
the other kids. And also, when you have grown up in a house where a fifteen year old is the head of the family financially, I think some of those concepts of aging are a little skewed. But Tussy and Stella did move to Minneapolis and they got jobs there
with Wanda's help. Wanda didn't stay in Minneapolis, though she had been accepted into the Art Students League of New York for the nineteen seventeen to nineteen eighteen school year, as had Adolph, and she was able to go thanks to the generosity of herschel v Jones and financially supporting her. She really loved being in New York. She learned a lot of new art techniques and enjoyed the city's many museums.
Back in New Olm were troubling for her. The four younger Gogs were really struggling, so Wanda took side jobs to get money to send to them for food and clothes and heat. When her school year in New York ended, she had her two oldest sisters worked out a plan. The new almhouse finally sold, and all the god Kids
moved to Minneapolis. Wanda's scholarship at the Art Students League was renewed for another year, and she was excited about it and felt more at peace going into the second year, knowing that her siblings were all together and that the younger ones had the oldest ones there to look after them. But New York wasn't as enjoyable as she had hoped
this time around. Money was tight and the need to constantly grind to find commercial jobs dragging a big portfolio around left her feeling, as she wrote in a journal quote, there is not much time to appreciate what we came to appreciate. She got a job lampshading, literally designing lampshades, and she found that that job completely zapped her creative energy. This second year in New York was also pivotal for
Wanda in terms of her relationship with Adolph Den. The two of them had many times professed their love for one another, but they also agreed that their art should always come first. At twenty six, Wanda had never had a sexual experience with anyone, and she made a decision that she and Adolf should finally have sex.
The two of.
Them were really communicative and methodical about planning this step, talking through what it would mean for their relationship. She also went to a doctor for birth control, and then they finally had sex, and after all of that planning and thinking about it, Wanda found the whole experience ultimately a letdown.
In nineteen twenty one, Adolph went on a trip to Europe, and during that time, Wanda started seeing his roommate Earl Humphries, so initially it sounds like this was intended to be a strictly friends with benefits situation while Adolf Dan was away, but then he met someone else in Europe and he ended up staying there for years. Wanda and Earle continued to see one another, and she was adamant that a
regular sex life had become crucial for her art. Wanda didn't really believe in monogamy, and though her relationship with Earle did evolve into something more like a serious monogamous relationship and she was committed to him, she sometimes wrote in her journal about how she really always wished for the thrill of a new relationship. In the early nineteen twenties, Wanda had some of her illustrations published in art magazines
in the US and Europe. Much of Gog's work during this time was in printmaking, and a lot of the imagery feels quite lonely. It reveals in New York that isn't necessarily the vibrant, bustling place many saw it to be, but instead shows the quiet interiors of people's lives, often depicting the life of a person who lives alone, such as supper laid for one, which was printed in the Marxist magazine New Masses in nineteen twenty six. This illustration
features a corner of a solo apartment. Despite the title, it's not really focused on a table, although one is partially in the scene on the right side of the frame. It's a high contrast black and white image that conveys a stark, simple abode. It does not feel in any way joyous. It shows the strong influences of German Expressionism and the work of Vincent Van go Go, combining with Gog's own vision to create what would become her trademark style.
She was a huge Vincent vanng Go fam borderline fangirl. Several years before that art supper Laid for One pub was printed, Wanda had already shown a good deal of disillusionment with New York and with the commercial art world that she felt compelled to participate in to continue to support the Gog family. She wrote in her journal quote, I do not want to live in the restless, hectic, busy, busy life for which Americans are noted. I want to sort of ramble through life, not lazily, for I must
be active to be happy. I want to read and study and work hard and live, but I do not want to always feel myself rushing along in pursuit of money.
In nineteen twenty three, Wanda had a solo show, her first at the New York Public Libraries branch on ninety sixth Street. It ran from February fifteenth to April first, and featured a mix of drawings for adults and children, totaling forty pieces. It got really positive attention. One of the attendees was well known theatrical and industrial designer Norman Belgetti's, who liked that Gog's work was original and not derivative.
Yeah, he apparently gave her some words of encouragement at the show. After the New York show, Wanda reassessed her situation. She was worn out with living in New York and she really wanted a solace. And fortunately she had kept the family afloat long enough that her siblings had aged up to the point where they could all work and
take care of themselves. So she took advantage of the breathing room that shift afforded her, and she moved to Connecticut for a reset, living out in the country for almost a year, except for going back to New York for the winter. Throughout her art career up to this point, she had been frustrated any time she had to draw what someone else directed, whether that was in school or for her commercial work. And in Connecticut she drew and painted for herself, producing a large volume of work in
a relatively short time. One of the innovative things she tried during this time was drawing on sandpaper using a lithographic crayon. The resulting drawing could be used to make prints, sort of the way you'd make prints from a lithography stone. She experimented with this technique throughout her career, after this, moving on from the lithography crayon to a brush and ink, noting that she had to be careful when using the brush because quote, it is easy to get a mussy drawing.
She had a second show at the ninety six Street New York Public Library branch in the spring of nineteen twenty four, which showed work she had done with this technique. Then she went back to the Connecticut countryside. The following year. She had nineteen pieces selected to be shown at the Way A Gallery. I'm not sure if that's how you
pronounce it. I can't seem to find a good pronunciation, and it is a defunct gallery, so we'll never know unless somebody in the audience knows and you can tell me, but it'll be too late too for this show that
was curated by gallery director Carl Zigrosser. Ziggrosser was able to very quickly sell several of the pieces, and Wanda, elated to have sold art that she had created strictly through her own inspiration, wrote of the sales quote, it made me happy to think that I had been able to get money for the things I really like to do that doesn't happen often enough. In nineteen twenty six,
Zigrosser gave her a solo show at the gallery. The reviews of that nineteen twenty six show were largely very positive, with The New York Post calling it quote an alluring exhibition that is hard to leave.
In nineteen twenty seven, Wanda published an essay titled a Hotbed of Feminists. Possibly because of that essay, Wanda had put into motions something that would really shift her life in a significant way. We will talk about that shift in part two. In Listener Mail today, we have an email about the box car Children. We have a few I'm going to get through them.
I swear. This is from our listener, an who writes Dear Holly and Tracy. I just had to write in about The box Car Children. I appreciated learning about the author on the Friday Behind the Scenes episode. You were wondering about whether they might not have been popular in the South. I can confirm that in the mid eighties, by elementary school in a metro Atlanta suburb had quite a few of The Box Car Children books. My second grade teacher read The box Car Children aloud to our class,
and I loved it. As a kid who always enjoyed playing house, the idea of kids playing house in a box car in the woods, but for real, with no adults or anything, was captivating to me. I later checked one or two of the other books out of the school library, but since they didn't live on their own in the box car anymore, it just wasn't the same, so I didn't continue the series, despite the fact that I loved mystery stories and it would have been around the same time I was making my way through the
entire Nancy Drew series. Thanks as always for the excellent podcast, and this reminded me to talk about two things. One I didn't mention it's a spoiler if nobody's if somebody hasn't read The box Car Children. But at the end of the first book, so if you haven't read it, you know, want to be spoiled, jump out. Now it's fine.
But at the end of the first book, they get the box car back, like they get to keep it in the backyard and use it as a playhouse, so it stays part of their lives, but it's not where they live anymore. The other thing that is funny is that, like Anne, I feel like there's some magical window that some people hit where you're simultaneously reading like The box Car Children, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Trixie Buildin and I was blazing through all of those at the same time.
So when she mentioned she was also reading Nancy Drew, it was a lovely memory of youth.
So thank you, Anne. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
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