Mary Bailey and her great-grandfather Henry Turner Bailey
In the first sentence of his book Art Education, Henry Turner Bailey stated that he believed “the purpose of art education is the development of appreciation for the beautiful and of the power to produce beautiful things.”
Bailey, also known as HTB, was hired as director of the School of Arts and Crafts at Chautauqua Institution in 1906 to upgrade and expand its arts and crafts curriculum, and his vision was the driving force behind the design of the Arts Quad.
Over the course of his life, HTB emerged as a prominent national advocate for transforming art education in public schools. “Such taste and skill will not appear when the teacher stamps his foot,” he wrote in Art Education. “They are fruits. They must be grown.”
HTB held the belief that art should not be a privilege for the wealthy, but an essential part of everyday life, aligning perfectly with the vision of the Institution’s founders John Heyl Vincent and Lewis Miller. They championed the idea that education, including art, should be universally accessible, enriching, and integrated into daily activities.
More than 100 years later, his great-granddaughter, artist and lifelong Chautauquan Mary Bailey will present “Henry Turner Bailey: Ambassador of Beauty & Director of the Chautauqua School of Arts and Crafts 1906-1916,” about the life and legacy of her great-grandfather, at 3:30 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy as part of the Oliver Archives Center’s Heritage Lecture Series.
Henry Turner Bailey and Josephine Litchfield Bailey in front of their house they named “Trustworth.” Bailey, from 1906 to 1916, served as director of the Chautauqua School of Arts and Crafts.
When HTB arrived at Chautauqua, art classes were taught in the “Arts & Crafts Village,” which Mary Bailey described as a collection of small buildings and tents near the main gate, repurposed and relocated from other places around the grounds.
At the time, the architect Albert Kelsey had been hired to come up with a master plan to manage the growth of increased attendance at the Institution, and he recognized the need for a more permanent building for the art school.
While Kelsey’s original designs didn’t end up being used, it was HTB, in collaboration with Buffalo architectural firm Green and Wicks — which had also designed the Albright Knox Museum — and Franklin J. Kidd, who designed what is now known as the Arts Quad.
A Daily article published July 9, 1909, describes the new building as recalling “the plan of the medieval monasteries.” It sets the scene during construction, noting that “the busy sounds of hammers and saws, of planes and looms are beginning to be heard in the new arts and craft shops on College Hill.” The article describes the school as “the best equipped summer shops in the country” and HTB is quoted as saying that “here we are under our spreading chestnut tree, working away as happily as crickets.”
HTB not only ran the school, but he spoke at the Amphitheater at least 20 times from 1909 to 1917, occasionally presenting the evening’s program. All of his lectures were accompanied by his signature blackboard, on which he would often draw with both hands at once, illustrating whatever subject he was discussing. His topics ranged from beauty in nature and the home, art education, architecture, photography and art appreciation.
“Methuselah”drawing by Henry Turner Bailey from Tree Folk (1929)
In the Daily’s recap of HTB’s 1913 Amp lecture, “Beauty in Nature,” the reporter wrote, “There is absolutely no excuse for anyone who cannot see beauty in nature after hearing Henry Turner Bailey’s illustrated talk about the subject. … The lecture was transformed from an ordinary nature talk into a wonderful exposition of nature’s treasures by the speaker’s apt illustrations from everyday plant and flower life, and by the drawings which he made … on the blackboard to illustrate his thoughts and their application.”
Nature has been cited as one of the biggest creative inspirations in HTB’s life, with many of his drawings consisting of different plants and landscapes.
In the book Yankee Convictions, compiled by Jean Bailey Gaede, HTB reflects on an early formative memory he had as a child playing in the yard with his friends, “when the plum tree was in full bloom, and the bees were filling all the air with their delicious music, and a flame colored oriole just back from the south dropped out of the blue, and sang amid the white blossoms, suddenly a wave of feeling broke over me, tightening my throat, and bringing foolish tears to my eyes, and I knew it was all beautiful. I never told anyone about it, not even my mother; I knew I had a secret. After that, I knew that to me, the world was somehow different. I knew because I saw things my playmates did not see. … They pulled the fern shoots to eat, never noticing the furry fiddleheads. They peeled the bark from the birch trunks, to see who could get the largest piece untorn; they never stopped to look at the soft pinky and golden colors.”
In another lecture recap published by the Daily on Aug. 15, 1916, HTB discussed his most beloved subject of all — trees. According to Mary Bailey, HTB’s graphite drawings of trees are some of his best pieces. He would often anthropomorphize trees and give them names. His lectures about trees illustrated with blackboard drawings were so popular that he published his words and drawings in what his great-granddaughter considers to be his best book — Tree Folk, bound in real wood veneer.
“Ancestral Ideals of Tree Shapes” drawing by Henry Turner Bailey from the Tree Folk, (1929)
“We usually think of a tree as a single living thing, you should better think of it as an organism. It is like a group or a colony or a city full of people. It is a complex being,” wrote HTB.
In Tree Folk, he writes about “families of trees” with “traditions,” how trees are idealistic and do their best to live up to those traditions, and how, despite being “maimed by its enemies, crowded by its neighbors, lashed by storms, struck by lightning, the spirit of the tree is never broken.” He illustrates these “families” in his wonderfully playful drawing “Ancestral Ideals of Tree Shapes.”
HTB also believed that “trees have souls,” and took great pleasure in their individuality. “Every tree has a different air and manner according to the place in which it grows, just as the man raised in the country has a different manner from the one raised in the city.” He waxes poetic about trees that “dress their leaves a marvelous robe … like a gauzy lace in the spring and “all colors of the rainbow” in the fall.
In addition to directing the A&C School and lecturing at the Amp, HTB also was active in the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. He was a member of the 1910 William Gladstone Class, and designed both the class banner and its Hall of Philosophy mosaic. Like many of HTB’s creative projects, every design element of the banner, down to its material, color and imagery, was carefully considered and chosen for its symbolism.
Outside of the Institution, HTB was the supervisor of drawing for the state of Massachusetts, the founder and editor of Schools Arts Magazine and dean of the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Though HTB is most well-known for his art and advocacy of accessibility in art education, Mary Bailey said she also wants to make sure in her lecture to give insight into his family life and who he was as a person.
Henry Turner Bailey’s drawn map of his hometown from his memoirs Yankee Notions (1929)
It wasn’t until she visited HTB’s home “Trustworth” that she said she truly understood who her great-grandfather was.
“Going and seeing Trustworth and seeing his drawings, his sense of humor, his playfulness, it just threw a switch in all of us, and gave us some sort of courage to do this crazy thing, which is to become an artist,” she said of her experience, and the experience of the other creatives in her family, when visiting HTB’s home.
Like her great-grandfather, Mary Bailey has an extensive background in the arts, receiving her MFA in writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a B.A. at Brown University with an Honors in Independent Concentration for “Art & Society.” Her award-winning pieces of different mediums have been featured in numerous exhibitions up and down the East Coast.
When researching her great-grandfather’s life further, she discovered the more she learned, the more she related to HTB — not just in terms of beliefs and practices, but also his source of creative inspiration.
Left, “How To Arrange Flowers” drawing by Henry Turner Bailey published in (1914). Right, “FROND, SPIKE, & POD” by Mary Bailey (2001)
“I made this piece almost 23 years ago,” she said, referring to her 2001 sculpture “FROND, SPIKE, & POD,” from her “Botanicals” collection and comparing it to her great-grandfather’s 1914 drawing “How To Arrange Flowers.” “I realized after doing research for this project, and going through his old drawings, just how similar our minds work.”
Mary Bailey said she hopes that even 93 years after his death, HTB’s whimsical work and lifelong commitment to art education will leave an impression on everyone who attends her lecture.
“I hope that they leave the lecture maybe looking at a plant differently, or at a building differently, or maybe even saying, ‘Hey, maybe I will take that painting course,’ ” she said. “I hope that people can see Henry Turner Bailey’s wonderful vision of the world and understand that an interest in art will lead to an interest in everything.”
