Sep

The Iconic Kitty Kingswood

A colleague recently inquired about a painting on the mezzanine wall leading to the music practice rooms at Kingswood School. The painting is of a girl, “Kitty Kingswood,” who is holding a pennant and is accompanied by a swan on the waves of Kingswood Lake. Eliel Saarinen painted the image in the 1930s to camouflage clay sewer pipes.

Painting by Eliel Saarinen in Kingswood School of Kitty Kingswood. Photo courtesy of Cassandra Nelson.

In 1950, Lillian Holm (Head of Weaving at Kingswood School from 1933-1965) copied the pattern of the gown from the painting and Louise Raisch hand-wove the first Kitty Kingswood doll. This doll was auctioned at the 1950 Autumn Festival.

The original Kitty Kingswood doll auctioned at the 1950 Autumn Festival. Photograph by Harvey Croze. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Is there more to the Kitty Kingswood story? A recent trip over to the Girls Middle School, as well as a dive into our files here at the Archives, indicates that there is much more—and the iconic Kitty still plays an integral role.

Fast forward to 1964. The Kingswood Alumnae Association presents a new award to a seventh or eighth grade girl who has contributed to the spirit of Kingswood and is an outstanding citizen. The Association commissions Kingswood sculpture teacher, Pamela Stump Walsh, to create a statue of Kitty Kingswood for the award. The Birmingham Eccentric describes the sculpture as “a typical KSC girl who holds a hockey stick and a pennant and stands on the KSC seal.”

A sketch for the Kitty Kingswood award by Pamela Stump Walsh. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Today, the statue resides at the Girls Middle School as does a plaque (also donated by Pamela Stump Walsh) with the award recipients’ names. An additional case at the middle school displays a Kitty Kingswood doll, which was reproduced and auctioned off for many years to raise funds for the school.

Kitty Kingswood sculpture by Pamela Stump Walsh at the Girls Middle School today.

The Kitty Kingswood Citizenship Award is still presented to an outstanding student each year at the Girls Middle School. The award is determined by vote of the faculty. Pamela Stump Walsh presented the award to the first recipient in 1964, and her words still inspire students today: “Good citizenship is more than simple obedience to a set of rules or laws. It is a loving obedience to just laws and the courage to change the unjust…but most of all, it is serious concern for the condition of others, even for the condition of our enemies.”

– Gina Tecos, Archivist

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Sep

Photo Friday: Thornlea Studio

In this moody photograph by Jack Kausch, we see Henry Scripps Booth with his plants, prints, antiques, and drawings in the Thornlea Studio alcove.

Henry Scripps Booth at his desk in the Thornlea Studio alcove. October 1981. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives/Jack Kausch Photographic Collection.

Henry designed Thornlea Studio as a working retreat behind his house, Thornlea, off Cranbrook Road. Completed to his own designs in 1937, here Henry worked on architectural projects for himself, for Cranbrook (like redesigning the Art Museum bathrooms and building the Cranbrook House gatehouse), and for friends and clients. He also used the studio as a place to write and read next to the cozy fireplace or beautiful expanses of windows.

Henry built this studio in 1937; in 1988 it was converted into the home of the Cranbrook Archives. Richard G. Askew, photographer, 1940. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

After Henry’s death in 1988, the studio was converted into a home for the Cranbrook Archives. The Archives were begun in part through Henry’s efforts sifting and organizing the Booth family papers and ephemera held at Cranbrook House. Relocated from the (very wet) basement and (very hot) attic of Cranbrook House, the Archives and its professional staff moved into Thornlea Studio. The most significant change to the building involved converting the Studio garage into a vault, with the reading room occupying the first floor drafting room and the alcove and offices on the second floor.

In 2012, the Archives offices, Reading Room, and certain parts of the collections were moved into the lower level of Cranbrook Art Museum. This summer, with the help of former Art Museum Preparator Mark Baker and Cranbrook Capital Projects, we moved again, into the Collections Wing.

Gina and Laura in Reading Room Sept 11 18

The new Archives Reading Room in the Cranbrook Art Museum Collections Wing. PD Rearick, photographer, 2018. Courtesy of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

In our beautiful new Archives Reading Room, we’ve hung a 1922 portrait of Henry Booth to commemorate his efforts to create and steward Cranbrook Archives. To visit our new Reading Room, see treasures from the Archives, and hear new research from five patrons of the Archives, come to our Open Archives event this Sunday from 1 to 5pm (short talks begin at 3pm). More information is available on our website.

Register online or at the door for this free event, and join us Sunday to celebrate Cranbrook Archives and see the new Reading Room!

–Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, 2016-2019, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Editors Note: The Archives is also excited to announce new hours! We will be open on Tuesday to Friday 11 to 5pm and the second Saturday of each month, 11 to 5pm.

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Sep

Brighty of Thornlea House

Peter Jepsen, Brighty, cast bronze. 1966. Collection of Thornlea House, Cranbrook. Courtesy of Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

In the foyer of Thornlea, the home of Henry Scripps and Carolyn Farr Booth, sits this statue of a burro, Brighty, by Peter Jepsen. He was a gift from their son, Stephen, commemorating a movie project he spearheaded.

Dust jacket of Brighty of the Grand Canyon. 1953 (first edition). Courtesy of Michigan eLibrary (MelCat).

In 1953, Newbery Award winner Marguerite Henry (1902-1999) published the novel Brighty of the Grand Canyon. It tells the story of a real burro named Brighty who lived in the Grand Canyon from 1890-1922. Brighty spent summers carrying water up the canyon to the North Rim. He was rewarded for his work with pancakes. Brighty became popular with visitors, and is said to have accompanied Teddy Roosevelt on one of his three visits to the Grand Canyon.

In 1963, Betty Booth bought a copy of Brighty of the Grand Canyon for her three boys, Douglas, Charlie, and Woody, to read on vacation. Betty was the wife of Stephen Farr Booth, who was a television producer at the time. Stephen read the book and loved it so much he decided to make it into a movie of the same name. The movie premiered in Detroit in 1967.

Movie poster for Brighty of the Grand Canyon. 1967. Courtesy WikiCommons.

To promote the movie, Stephen had commercial artist Peter L. Jepsen (1921-1994) create a life-sized, 600-pound statue of Brighty to be placed in the Grand Canyon’s South Rim’s Visitor Center (it was later moved to the North Rim’s Grand Canyon Lodge, where it resides today and where visitors rub his nose for good luck). Stephen also had 100 small-scale versions of the sculpture made and distributed to various people who worked on the movie. Stephen also gave one to his parents, who placed Brighty right inside the door of their home Thornlea.

We don’t encourage visitors to rub Brighty’s nose for good luck, but he is a fun and memorable addition to welcome guests to Thornlea.

– Leslie S. Mio, Associate Registrar

Note: The book, movie, and statue have kept the legend of Brighty alive. Brighty even has his own Facebook page.