Olinka Hrdy
| Olinka Hrdy | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Olive Marie "Olinka" Beneš Hrdy August 7, 1902 Prague, Oklahoma Territory |
| Died | September 18, 1987 (aged 85) Prague, Oklahoma |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Olinka Hrdy |
| Occupation | Artist 1923– |
| Known for | Murals |
Olinka Hrdy (1902–1987) was a female artist who was born in Prague, Oklahoma Territory, and became a noted artist in Oklahoma. She graduated in 1928, from the University of Oklahoma (OU), where she majored in art. Her teachers included Oscar Jacobsen and Edith Mahier, who considered her one of their most gifted students. She earned part of the money for her education by painting murals for a restaurant in Norman, Oklahoma, and a set of panels in the women's dormitory at OU.
Noted Oklahoma-born architect Bruce Goff discovered Hrdy's artistic talent one day while eating lunch at the OU women's dormitory and asked to meet the artist. They became friends and quickly began to collaborate, as he invited her to paint some murals for the Riverside Studio in Tulsa, which he was designing for a Tulsa musician. After that, he commissioned her to help decorate the Brady Theater in Tulsa (then known as the Tulsa Convention Hall). Her works at both sites have since disappeared.
Hrdy moved for a while in the 1930s to New York City, where she applied her artistic talent in designing utilitarian objects like place mats, textiles, radios, wallpaper and even scarves. She was then invited to attend Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesen Studio in Wisconsin, but ended her visit there after three months.
She moved to Southern California and worked for a while at the start of World War II, but quit her job and opened her own design studio. During this period, she also experienced a brief marriage that apparently ended in divorce. Later, she returned to live in her mother's home in Prague, where she died in 1987.
Olinka Hrdy was born August 7, 1902, in a one-room sod hut in Prague, Oklahoma to Josef Hrdy, an immigrant from Bohemia, and his wife, Emma, who was of Indian descent. She had two brothers: Carl, who was older and George, who was younger. Edvard Beneš, the second president of Czechoslovakia, was her second cousin. Her parents divorced when she was about sixteen, and she had no contact with her father after she left home for college.
When Olinka Hrdy enrolled in the University of Oklahoma in 1923, she initially declared her major as domestic arts. She had become proficient in embroidery, which was traditionally practiced by Czech women in her home town. She saw this as a path to learning sewing. She learned instead that domestic arts was boring and switched her major to art at the end of her first semester. Hrdy said that she had only fifty dollars when she arrived at OU. An instructor, Edith Mayer, saw examples of her work and invited her to paint a mural in one of the School of Creative Design offices. This mural was an illustration of a poem titled, “Maker of Dreams.” Other faculty members who saw Hrdy's work were also impressed, and she was commissioned to create a series of 20 panels for the doors separating two dining rooms in the Women's Dormitory. She titled the work, "Pageant of Foods." Newspapers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City picked up the story, publishing complimentary articles about her work, her talent, and how she had exchanged her art for tuition and board at the University. Olinka graduated from OU in 1928 with honors and won the Leteizer Gold Medal for Art as well.
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