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Painter Kelly Stevens’ legacy and the German Free School
Deaf artist Kelly Stevens considered himself one of the “lost boys.”
In a long 1973 letter to his lover Ben Chevalier, the Austinite revisited the Freudian theory on the origins of male homosexuality. Stevens felt his father, a grocer in Mexia, the small town east of Waco, had remained distant during his youth.
“He was proud of my success before he died,” Stevens wrote in an even, fluid longhand. “But never any sign of love.”
“He did not consider being deaf a handicap,” says Helga von Schweinitz, caretaker of Stevens’ material for the German-Texan Heritage Society, which inherited the bulk of his estate, including the German Free School building at 507 E. 10th St. in Austin. “It opened doors. It was an opportunity. He made it the point of his life.”
On Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Society will sell some of Stevens’ paintings with the help of art appraiser Charles “Lucky” Attal. Besides producing income for the always cash-strapped Society, the sale should put Stevens’ sinuous portraits, landscapes and still-life studies — he particularly loved painting magnolias — in the hands of art collectors or institutions that can exhibit them properly.
Also, the Society could then redecorate its 1857 limestone structure — shelved on a ridge above the Club de Ville and the Mohawk — with German Texana, closer to the group’s core mission of preserving that culture.
The tall, formal succession of public rooms on the upper floor could use a thorough redesign. Modern and antique furniture and appliances mix uneasily with delicate porcelain, china, silver, photographs and old books.
Born in 1896, globe-trotting Stevens had rescued the once-dilapidated building, which originally housed the tuition-free school founded by German settlers. After purchasing it in 1949, he turned the former school into a showcase living space and studio, celebrated in newspaper and magazine photographic spreads.
A case of scarlet fever left Stevens deaf at age 5. Yet he retained the use of speech. He enrolled in the Texas School for the Deaf in 1907 and was encouraged in his artistic craft by Nannie Huddle, widow of distinguished historical painter William Henry Huddle and herself a sculptor and painter.
After graduating from Gallaudet University (then a college) at Washington, D.C., in 1920, Stevens taught at state deaf schools and traveled the world, meeting and befriending deaf artists in Europe and Latin America.
He also collected their work. Some of those canvases ended up in the Ransom Center, which dedicated a room to Stevens’ collection. Others will be sold Saturday.
When he returned to Austin in the late 1940s, Stevens extended his circle of friends to the city’s deaf and gay communities. He rented the apartment that he built into the Free School’s lower floors to students and, during his final years, Stevens was tended by young admirers.
He kept up to 13 dachshunds in his terraced gardens and invited friends to doggie tea parties. But why did the artist deed the land to the Society, which was founded in San Marcos in 1978, but not listed in the Austin phone book, where Stevens found it, until 1991?
“He had no German connection,” von Schweinitz says. “His family was English. But he felt we would take care of his historic home and his legacy.”
A native of Herford, Germany, von Schweinitz, 74, immigrated to the United States in 1957. Here, she married another immigrant who was immediately drafted into the U.S. Air Force. She became a writer, translator and teacher of German, including a stint at Anderson High School.
“I also taught French and Spanish in a private school,” the buoyant von Schweinitz relates heartily. “Because they figured a European who had mastered German could teach any European language.”
Suspicion of German culture during the World Wars left Texas without a firm link to its very German past. The Society was created to revive interest in that heritage, including the publication of books, articles and journals, as well as establishing an extensive German Texan library. Austin remains the Society’s most active membership base.
Yet it is a volunteer-driven nonprofit that ekes out scant pay for three part-time staffers. The Society is perhaps best known, locally, for its seasonal festivals on the German Free School grounds, always a revelation, even for native Austinites, because the building and grounds are hidden from 10th Street by a gate and a wall.
Though she knew him only briefly, von Schweinitz has cultivated the public memory of Stevens. “He was such a gentle man,” she says. “We have boxes of letters from his mother and sisters, who sent him money and love. And he always kept so many friends.”
Stevens didn’t fall in love with Chevalier, 20 or so years his junior, until he was 77. Their relationship lasted until Chevalier’s death in the 1980s.
Von Schweinitz sums up the social legacy of this big-hearted artist: “The word ‘affectionate’ followed him all through his life.”
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By Dr. Monita Hara
June 12, 2011 8:25 PM | Link to this
Thank you so much for this article. Mr. Stevens was in instructor at the LA School for the Deaf in Baton Rouge from 1939 to 1947.
We are very proud to have his work to display.
And yes, we now have the Magnolia paintings.
Thanks again.
By Bob Crider
June 8, 2011 8:10 PM | Link to this
A mural by Kelly Stevens about 1942 of Jesus teaching the children is in the Sunday School Bldg of the First United Methodist Church. The building was the gift of his sister, Leila Stevens Peyton Hall, in memory of her husband George L. Peyton who was a tycoon during the Mexia Oil Boom of the 1920's.
By Michael Barnes
June 6, 2011 1:31 PM | Link to this
Mr. Mason, thanks for your kinds words. I think the reference to scarlet fever puts his deafness into historical context. As for the "lost boys" phrase, that's how Stevens describes, in his love letter to Ben Chevalier, those men who seek the company of other men because of a lack of fatherly affection. At the time, that was a common theory about the origins of male homosexuality. Best, Michael Barnes
By Robert L. Mason
June 6, 2011 8:36 AM | Link to this
Mr. Barnes, thanks for doing the great piece on Deaf artist, Kelly Stevens.
That would be real nice if you do not mention how Stevens lose his hearing. No big deal for people to be reminded of such a pathological reference. Thanks.
What do you really meant "one of the lost boys" phrase?
Robert L. Mason
By Kathryn Freeman
June 6, 2011 12:51 AM | Link to this
What a great bit of history to share with my daughter--she takes German classes there and really enjoys the building and grounds so much.