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Photo of Josephine Marsalis
Clardy Fox |
Josephine Marsalis Clardy Fox,
art collector and benefactor, was born in Liberty
Township, Missouri, on August 13, 1881, the only child
of Zeno Blanks and Allie (Davis) Clardy. In 1882 her
family moved to El Paso, where her father established a
legal business. His frequent acceptance of valuable
property in lieu of money for legal services formed the
foundation for a considerable fortune. Josephine Clardy
attended public schools until 1895, when she enrolled in
a private girls' school in St. Louis. Her enjoyment of
drama and music classes there prompted a lifelong
interest in the arts. |
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After her
father's death in 1901, she studied music in El
Paso, San Francisco, and New York City and
traveled in the United States and in Europe.
Although she had a fine voice, she gave up
singing entirely in later years. As a young
woman she suffered an eye injury that eventually
led to a partial loss of sight. On January 20,
1916, Josephine Clardy married Eugene Emmett
Fox, a railroad executive, in New York City;
they had no children. They settled in El Paso,
where Mrs. Fox began collecting fine furniture
and art for their home at 1119 Montana Street.
The thirties were difficult years for her. She
was in a serious car accident in the early
thirties that left her back permanently damaged,
and she suffered serious financial setbacks,
frequently finding it difficult to pay the taxes
on her family's land. Financial obligations kept
her in El Paso while her husband worked in
Washington, D.C. He died in 1934, and in 1940
her mother, to whom she was very close, also
died. After the depression, however, her
fortunes began to improve, and she participated
in El Paso's social and cultural events until
poor health intervened in the 1960s. She was a
supporter of the El Paso Museum of Art, the El
Paso Symphony Orchestra, the El Paso Community
Concert Association, and the Dallas Civic Opera.
She was a member of the El Paso County
Historical Society, the National Society of Arts
and Letters, and numerous other social and
charitable clubs. She was named to the Advisory
Committee of the National Arts Foundation in
1953.
In the mid-forties, with the help of William J.
Elliott, Josephine Fox began developing large
tracts of land formerly used to grow cotton.
This development, together with two profitable
land sales in the late 1950s, made her a wealthy
woman. Her increased affluence enabled her to
buy a number of paintings and other art objects
from Count Ivan Podgoursky and Count Louis von
Cseh in the late fifties and sixties. She paid
high prices for works falsely attributed to
Antoine Watteau, Peter Paul Rubens, Thomas
Gainsborough, Diego Velázquez, and Bartolomé
Esteban Murillo, but did acquire a valuable
painting by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and a
portrait of George Washington by a follower of
Gilbert Stuart. She was more successful in
assembling an extensive collection of decorative
art objects; her home was filled with fine
antique furniture, a large collection of
beautiful and historic fans, rare silver boxes
and flatware, fine porcelain, a large collection
of antique clocks, and Limoges enamels. She also
gave land to the city of El Paso to establish a
school in memory of her father and a branch
library in her name. She made charitable gifts
to the El Paso Symphony, the Hotel Dieu School
of Nursing, the Salvation Army, the United Fund,
and a number of other churches, schools, and
charities.
In 1959 Fox fell and broke her hip,
necessitating surgery and a long convalescence.
She broke the same hip in 1964, and spent the
rest of her life in the hospital. She was a
Presbyterian for most of her life but was
converted to Catholicism shortly before her
death. She died on May 11, 1970, and left her
entire estate, valued at more than $3 million,
to the University of Texas at El Paso, the
largest gift to the institution at that time.
Her collection of 1,000 books, some very old and
rare, went to the University of Texas at El Paso
library. Hundreds of the picture hats that Fox
loved to wear were given to the university's
drama department for use in costumes. Some of
the oil paintings, antique furniture, and fine
art objects from her home are exhibited in
various places on the University of Texas at El
Paso campus, including Hoover House, the
president's home, and the conference room and
faculty dining room at the Centennial Museum. In
addition, the Centennial Museum has lent many of
her decorative art objects and furniture to the
Quinta Gameras Museum at the University of
Chihuahua.
Bibliography: Ruby Burns, Josephine Clardy
Fox: Traveler, Opera-Goer, Collector of Art,
Benefactor (El Paso: Texas Western Press,
1973). Josephine Clardy Fox Collection, Special
Collections Department, University of Texas at
El Paso. "Texas Women: A Celebration of History"
Archives, Texas Woman's University, Denton.
From the Handbook of Texas Online:
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/FF/ffo38.html |
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