Thelma Wood facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Thelma Wood
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| Born |
Thelma Ellen Wood
July 3, 1901 Kansas, United States
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| Died | December 10, 1970 (aged 69) Danbury, Connecticut, United States
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Washington University in St. Louis |
| Known for | Sculpture, drawings |
Thelma Ellen Wood (July 3, 1901 – December 10, 1970) was an American artist, specialising in the traditional fine line drawing technique known as Silverpoint. She was noted for her hectic private life, and her lesbian relationship with Djuna Barnes was fictionalized in Barnes' novel Nightwood.
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Early life
Wood was born in Mankato, Kansas, the second of four children. Her father later moved the family to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1918 her mother and younger brother succumbed to the influenza epidemic of 1918. Two months prior to their deaths, Wood enrolled at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts (now known as the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts) at Washington University in St. Louis. It is likely there that she learned the technique of silverpoint drawing, for which she is best known. In 1920, Wood and a fellow art student, Myra Marglous, applied for passports and left for Paris to continue studying art.
Relationships
In the fall of 1921, Wood and photographer Berenice Abbott met. They remained close friends for life. Abbott later introduced Wood to poet Djuna Barnes, and made photographic portraits of both of them. Wood also had a brief relationship with the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay during the early 1920s.
Wood's relationship with Djuna Barnes lasted 8 years and was deemed the "great love" of each of their lives.
Career
Although very little of her work survives, many of her drawings accompany collections of Djuna Barnes. Wood's sketchbook from a trip to Berlin remains in the Barnes Papers at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her work drew strongly on images from nature. Wood's silverpoint drawings were exhibited at least once, at Milch Galleries in New York City in 1931 where Mary Fanton Roberts reviewed her work favorably.
Later life
Wood became involved with Margaret Behrens, a realtor and antique dealer, and she moved into Behrens' home in Monroe, Connecticut. They were together until Wood's death.
Death
Wood died of metastasized breast cancer in Danbury Hospital in 1970. Her ashes were interred in the Behrens family plot in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Legacy
Author Sarah Schulman dedicated her 2018 novel Maggie Terry, to Thelma Wood. In an interview she stated Wood was, "historically, one of the world’s worst girlfriends who ever lived. She was the bad girlfriend of Djuna Barnes and she drove Djuna Barnes so crazy that she was the muse for Djuna Barnes’s work. So the book is dedicated to bad girlfriends."
