A Little Family History

Years ago, I heard there was a portrait of my maternal grandfather Sanford Evans on display somewhere in the Westport, CT town hall, but I never did get around to delving any further into it.  Just recently my cousin posted a photograph of our grandparents' Westport home on Facebook, and that led me to do a little online poking around.  Lo and behold!  I found an article about the WPA, and there was the portrait I had heard about so long ago.  (That's my grandfather standing at the far left, studying a paper.)

Here is part of the article: "On Feb. 20, 1976 , The Westport News published an article about Henrietta Cholmely-Jones, an artist, writer and town resident for 45 years, who gave full support to the then-burgeoning school art collection. Her artistic contributions to Westport began much earlier in 1934 with the advent of the WPA project, when she was appointed by the federal government as local supervisor for artists to decorate Westport’s public buildings.

Cholmely-Jones was one of four committee members responsible for selecting 17 local artists whose reputations were on the rise at that time. This committee included then-First Selectman King Mansfield, architect Sanford Evans and writer Brooke Church. Over the next four years, Town Hall, the library and six schools were recipients of murals, portraits, paintings, drawings, door panels, bas reliefs, sculpture, illuminated parchments, maps and photographs.

Thirty-two Westport artists signed up for local projects; 10 were selected. The WPA administrators in Washington, D.C., were so impressed with the quality of Westport’s WPA program that they commissioned artist Ralph Boyer to do a painting of Cholmely-Jones’ committee. It now hangs at Town Hall in Room 309. For her work as local WPA supervisor, Cholmely-Jones earned $1 per year."