Josephine Romano Lyden, seated left, worked at the Index of American Design in the late 1930s on art projects documenting early American artifacts and later as an art instructor with the Alhambra Unified (Photo – AHS)
For Women’s History Month, the Alhambra Historical Society profiled three nationally recognized female artists who once called Alhambra home — Josephine Romano Lyden, Florence Upson Young and Marjorie Reed.
By Joyce Amaro
Josephine Romano Lyden
Josephine Romano Lyden was born in Alabama in 1915 but grew up in LA’s Lincoln Heights area and received her art training at the LA Art College. She worked with other prominent artists, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Walt Disney, in the late 1930s at the Index of American Design. During this time, Ms. Lyden collaborated with Edith Towner and created a watercolor/graphite painting of an 1880s Mollie Bentley doll. This painting is now housed at the National Gallery of Art. When the war hit in the 1940s, Ms. Lyden worked as an electrical/mechanical draftswoman and technical illustrator. After World War II, Ms. Lyden moved to Alhambra, working as an art instructor for many years in the LA Unified School District and the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. At age 86, she was still working at the Alhambra Unified School District as an art instructor. Ms. Lyden passed away in 2009.
Florence Upson Young
Florence Upson Young was born in 1872 in Iowa and received art training at the Chicago School of Art and the prestigious Art Students League in New York. She moved to Alhambra in the 1920s; her home and studio were at 29 South Granada Avenue, just south of Main Street. No doubt Ms. Young was drawn to Alhambra as many of her artist friends and associates lived just blocks away on Champion Place — better known then as Artists’ Alley. Ms. Young’s subjects ranged from California desert, sea, and mountain landscapes to California Missions to Chinatown. Her paintings circa 1932 of “China City” — the current location of LA’s Union Station — are especially noteworthy. Pomona College’s Museum of Art has the most extensive collection of Florence Young’s paintings. Alhambra’s Historical Society Museum is the proud owner of three of Ms. Young’s original watercolor paintings, entitled “San Gabriel Mission,” “A View of Mt. Wilson,” and “The Old Mill.” Ms. Young died in 1974 in San Gabriel.
Marjorie Reed
Marjorie Reed was one of the artists known as “The Eight Artists of Champion Place” and the only woman artist to be included in this group. Born in Illinois in 1915, Ms. Reed moved to Southern California with her family in 1927. Her father, Walter Reed, worked as a freelance graphic artist for an LA-based commercial art company, and Marjorie began working with him at 14. After graduating high school, Ms. Reed discovered Alhambra’s Artists’ Alley. She often walked or roller skated the 16-mile round trip from her family’s home in Highland Park to Alhambra to receive art instruction from the renowned California landscape artist Jack Wilkinson Smith, who lived at 16 Champion Place. After a near-death encounter with a car, the Smith family invited Ms. Reed to live with them, and she officially became the youngest member of Artists’ Alley. Ms. Reed is best known for her oil paintings of stagecoaches and stations. Over the course of her life, she created a series of 30 paintings depicting the various stage stations along the California Butterfield Overland Stage Route. The success of this collection led to her completing paintings for each of the six states through which the Butterfield Stage Route traverses. Ms. Reed died in 1996 in Vallecito, CA.
Alhambra Historical Society Museum has three original watercolor paintings by Florence Upson Young and a reproduction of a painting by Marjorie Reed among its collection. These paintings may be viewed as part of the museum’s Women’s History Month exhibit.
Visit the Alhambra Historical Museum this month to learn more about the women who influenced, led, and shaped the Alhambra we know today. The museum is located at 1550 West Alhambra Road, Alhambra, CA 91801 and is open between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm on the first and third Saturdays of each month. Learn more at alhambrahistoricalsociety.org or email alhambrahistsoc@att.net.
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