A Night With Eugene Kingman at the Joslyn Castle

On April 26, 2023, Joslyn Castle & Gardens in Omaha held an evening about Eugene Kingman: painter, New York Times muralist and director of the Joslyn Art Museum.

Guests arrived at 5:30 for a gallery viewing and reception. Paintings by Kingman, borrowed for the night from Omaha collections, hung in the Castle’s Gold Room alongside a display of his work for the March 1937 National Geographic and other Kingman artifacts. Lenders included Ann Hosford, Susan Lebens, Scott and Mary Pat Paul, Jim and Maureen Waldron, and the Willis and Janet Strauss family.

At 6:00, author and historian John Dechant, then on the Castle’s board, welcomed everyone. Maureen McCann Waldron, historian and chair of the mural steering committee, gave the main talk. She covered his teaching of mural painting and lithography at the Rhode Island School of Design, his New Deal post office murals, the national park paintings for the 1931 Paris Exposition, his wartime map work for the Office of Strategic Services, and his years in Omaha. She also brought the audience up to date on the New York Times mural, which was in storage at the Joslyn Art Museum while it waited for a new home.

Mixie Kingman Eddy, Kingman’s daughter, closed the evening. She read remembrances of her father from old friends and family, including Mollie and Terry Foster and her cousin Wally Atwood.

The evening was the idea of Kelli Bello, the Castle’s Director of Development and Outreach, and she and the Castle staff did the work to organize and promote it. The Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment supported the program. Quinlan Kingman Eddy’s video of the evening is below.

The Castle held a second Night With Eugene Kingman for its Castle Friends on June 11, 2024. A year and a half after this first evening, it hosted the Retrospective and Art Sale.