Mary Welch Art

Mary Welch was born 10 years after the end of the Civil War and was a woman who was ahead of her time. She signed her paintings M. Welch, hoping that potential buyers wouldn't discover that she was a woman. More often than not, when they learned her sex, art dealers lost interest. The Hutchinson artist never married or had children. But when she died in 1967, she left an impressive body of paintings, and many of them were familiar Kansas landscapes. A collection of Welch's paintings was on display at the Hutchinson Art Center, 405 North Washington. The show was courtesy of former Hutchinson resident Linda Ging, who now lives in Santa Fe, N.M. Ging, a former student of Welch, inherited the paintings in the last years of Welch's life. "I took them into my care before she died," Ging said. The paintings reflect Welch's art training with Lindsborg artist Birger Sandzén and English artist Robert Wood. "She had a very academic, realistic style," Ging said. "She painted what she saw. She had a very good eye for color and her paintings reflected the kind of serenity and peace that she felt."

The only girl in a family of boys, Welch was born in Iowa and moved to the Burton area with her family as a baby. She lived in Hutchinson for most of her life. Ging had undated news clippings showing Welch as an older woman, displaying her work at the former Acme Paint Store and the Baker Hotel in Hutchinson. She was 84 when Ging took painting lessons from her in 1960. She studied drawing and painting since she was a child. She graduated with a degree in painting from the University of Kansas in 1898, a time when few women dared to study beyond high school, "She was just an extraordinary woman in the things that she did," Ging said . From 1940–1942, Welch traveled along the California coast, collecting sketches and paintings. She also painted on site in Kansas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois. As Ging's painting teacher, Welch told her of the barriers she overcame to become an artist. She chose to sign her paintings M. Welch to get her foot in the door. Many of the letters she received from people in the profession were addressed to "Mr. Welch" because they assumed she was a man, Ging said.