Lucile Lloyd

Early life

Lloyd was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents were Mary Alice (Holcomb) and Harry Kensington Lloyd. She apprenticed in her father's studio. Her English grandfather was a textile designer during the Arts and Crafts movement. She attended school at the Woman's Art School at Cooper Union in New York City and won two scholarships to the Art Students League of New York. While at Cooper Union she studied with Frank Fairbanks, Frederick Deilman, Robert Tyland and Josheph C. Chase. She was the first woman to work in the drafting room of architect Bertram G. Goodhue and painted her first mural decoration at the age of twenty <Architecture and Engineer, July 1931, p. 55>. In 1919 Lloyd married Addison Brown II, son of Addison Brown. They had one child, Addison Brown III. In 1925 Addison Brown Jr divorced her and moved with their two year old child back to the east coast.

Career

Lloyd moved with her husband and son to California in 1919. She opened a studio, taught classes and took the directorship of the Stickney Memorial School of Art in Pasadena. Lloyd worked as a muralist and decorator and also produced bookplates, cartoons, logos, water color, charcoal, architectural renderings and stained-glass designs. She worked with many well-known architectural firms including Howard Hewitt, Marsh, Smith,&Powell, Carleton Monroe Wilson and the west coast office of Bertam Goodhue.

In 1923 Lloyd contributes an article in the December issue of California Southland (pg. 14) entitled The Relationship Between Architecture and Decoration. Here she acknowledges that while the architect has the vision, it is the interior specialist that brings together the decorative elements that complete a space. Lloyd mentions the need for time to research and create full scale working drawings as well as full color renderings. She goes on to stress that muralists such as herself be included from the onset of a project. "Bringing in an artist at the last minute can lead to a displeased client". "If the client could only be persuaded to put the money he spends, later, on landscapes or genre paintings which do not go with is house, into one good ceiling for over-mantel, which becomes a part of the architecture of his home, he would be better satisfied in the end"She closes her article by saying that while mural artists "speak the language of trade painters, murals artist are not to be confused with "house painters".

Lloyd, under the auspices of the architectural firm of Marsh, Smith, Powell, created a 39×7-ft oil painting for the South Pasadena Middle School (formerly South Pasadena Junior High). The Madonna of the Covered Wagon was executed on canvas at the artist's studio and installed in the proscenium of the auditorium after completion. The scene recalls a journey made by thousands of pioneer families as they cam west during the 1800s. The sheer cliffs of El Capitan are shown on the right rising high about the banks of the Merced River. While the work was considered by some critics of the time as saccharine, it is typical of the Illustrators School which was the style of her time. Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier gave the work high praise saying"her delightful murals combines humor and sentiment in delightful proportions

A Three Works Progress Administration/Federal Arts Project panel mural by Lloyd have, since 1992, been displayed by the California State Senate. The murals were moved after the original site was damaged in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. They are now in the Senate Committee Room in Sacramento, California.

The mural, titled "California's Name", were dedicated on October 16, 1937 at the Los Angeles State Building at 217 West First Street on the Civic Center, hung in an Assembly room. The middle is approximately 16×13 ft and side panels 6.5×13 ft .

Lloyd was one of six artists who submitted drawings for the murals at Griffith Observatory. She was a member of the California Art Club, Women Painters of the West, American Bookplate Society and the California State Historical Association.

She married her second husband Niel McNulty in 1936, who died in 1939. Lucile Lloyd committed suicide in February, 1941.

Commissions

1923

'Episodes of Beowulf' Hanson House, Flintridge

1927

Eight murals private homes, Los Angeles

1928

'Madonna of the covered Wagon' South Pasadena Junior High

1929

Ceilings; First Methodist Episcopal Church, Santa Ana

Children's rooms, Ives and Warren Mortuary, Pasadena

Eight murals private residences, San Marino & Beverley Hills

1930

Kindergarten Frieze - Stoneman Elementary School, San Marino

Ceilings and mural - First Baptist Church Chapel, Pasadena

Administration Building murals, South Pasadena Schools

South Pasadena Public Library

Auditorium ceiling, Sierra Madre Grade School

Newport Harbor Union High School

1931

Ceilings, Hollywood Citizen News building, Hollywood

Auditorium El Centro Elementary School, South Pasadena

Facade, Averill-Morgan Company, Hollywood

Auditorium, Long Beach Polytechnic

Interiors, Mannings Restaurant, Long Beach

Study Hall ceiling Excelsior Union High School

Ceilings and porch, 87th Street School, Los Angeles Ceiling, Pacific Colony State Hospital at Spadra

Murals, suites; Dr. I. Eugene Gould, Pasadena

1932

Three wall panels, Hollywood National Bank

Ceiling and Murals, Hotel Miramar

Eagle Rock High School

St. Mary of the Angels Anglican Church, Hollywood

Virgil Junior High

East Whittier School Mural 'Peter Pan'

Gymnasium ceiling, Foshay Junior High School, LA

1933

Library ceiling, Hollywood High School

Borders on Murals, LA Public Library Rotunda

La Chappelle Residence, Beverley Hills

Interiors, Manning's Restaurant, LA

1934

Third floor remodel, Broadway Department Store, LA

Entrance, Jeweler's Exchange Building

1936-37

Three murals, 'California's Name" Assembly Room, State Building, LA

Windows, mausoleum at Inglewood Cemetery