The Artists

Baby Grace Henry on stage. Charles Andrus Robert Naves and General Chennault, Flying Tigers, ca. 1940s. Grafton Town Hall

The most accomplished and prolific Vermont artists was Charles Washington Henry (1850-1918). He and his extended family traveled throughout Vermont and the neighboring states, often boarding out six months at a time with local families. He painted curtains from about 1885 until 1915, when he settled down to become the manager of a small opera house. The family traveled in a caravan of horse-drawn wagons and then Model T Fords and carried with them costumes, paints, play scripts and all their personal belongings. The Henrys all played musical instruments and produced vaudeville-like evenings. Henry’s curtains have common characteristics such as his style of drapery, palette, and his inclusion of horses in almost every grand drape. He painted about 50 curtains in Vermont.

Charles Andrus (1852–1924) lived primarily in Richford, where he had a studio, taught art and made his living by designing engraved advertisements and working in gold leaf. He was especially interested in the Civil War and the curtains at the Hyde Park Opera House and Chittenden Town Hall reflect a visit to Virginia battlefields. He also painted a 150ft long Grand Panorama with eleven Civil War Scenes and an enormous painting of Sheridan’s Ride, which is now at the Vermont Militia Museum.

Another artist with Vermont connections was Robert Naves, who worked out of a barn in neighboring New Hampshire, but who traveled throughout Vermont selling ads and painting curtains in Grange and village town halls. Noted for creating the logo for his Flying Tigers Air Force unit during WWII, his curtains have a completely different style from all others. He uses vibrant colors and blocks of ads to create street scenes and often includes amusing images such as blimps or gas pumps. Naves died in China in 1944.

Commercially produced curtains were ordered from studios in Boston, New York, Chicago and other places. Today these curtains are often in more stable condition than those painted by the itinerant artists – their paints were more professionally mixed and the primary support is often of a slightly higher quality. Towns could choose from catalogues of different images which would be adapted for size and local preference. The O.L. Story Scenic Studio in Boston produced at least a dozen Vermont curtains, many of which feature Chillon Castle in Switzerland.

A final group of artists remain anonymous. This was an age of traveling sign painters, as well as self-taught artists who created scenes on the sides of barns. Some of these curtains are extremely well executed and it may only be a matter of research before we are able to attribute them to scenic studios.