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Personal Reflection/Anecdote

checking. I came across
instances in which an author
used information from other
publications without looking
at the cited sources. I want
to quote Mitchell A. Wilder,
the founding director of the
Amon Carter Museum of
Western Art in Fort Worth,
Texas, who wrote in 1963,
“Through years there
has grown a vast body of
opinion, judgments, myths,
and plain ordinary errors
which have been allowed to
become accepted as fact by
virtue of appearing in print”
(p. 7). He was referencing
the publications about artists
of the Taos art colony, but Leon Gaspard. San Jeronimo Fiesta. 1956. Gouache on paperboard. Bequest
his words are true with of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965, Stark Museum of Art, Orange, Texas. 31.26.14.
regard to any field. I cannot Used by permission
overestimate the importance of going to primary sources and checking information against historical
fact. This is as important for researchers as for college students. I hope that a professor in a history or
art history department will put my book on the reading list for his class in order to discuss the use of
primary sources in research.

Nancy: What was your most unexpected or memorable find?
Elena: It must be the certificate of a civil marriage between “Leib Schulman and Eugenie Evlyn
Gasper,” dated December 24, 1908. Gaspard claimed that he and Evlyn (his wife of 48 years) had been
married in a civil ceremony in Paris, but there was no evidence to corroborate this fact and, knowing his
tendency to make things up, I did not put much trust in his words. Nevertheless, when I was in Paris, I
went to the mayor’s office in the 14th district, where Leon lived. I walked in without much hope and told
the clerk what I knew, which wasn’t much—the names of the bride and the groom and an approximate
year of their marriage. To my astonishment, 20 minutes later he came back with a copy of the marriage
certificate. It was a lengthy document that provided more information about the artist and his wife than I
could ever have expected to find.

Nancy: How did DKG play a role in your journey?
Elena: I am very grateful to DKG because it was the only organization that offered me any financial
support. As an independent researcher, I quickly realized that I was on my own. In 2016, I was awarded
a grant by Texas State Organization, to which I then belonged, and it partially covered my travel
expenses to Minsk. Last year, I received the Cornetet award from DKGIEF, which allowed me to attend
the Southwest Art History Conference in Taos, New Mexico. It is a very important conference for my
research because Gaspard is considered a Southwestern artist, and I had an opportunity to meet with the
experts in this field. As an added bonus, I visited Taos, where Gaspard lived for over 40 years, and his
own house, which was about one mile away from the location of the conference.

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