This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| The following obituary, submitted March 2005, is from Marta Curro, the artist's daughter.
Evelyn Curro, "Americana" artist, died on Saturday, March 5, 2005, in Olhao, Portugal, a "fishing village" in The Algarve, Southern Portugal, where she had lived for the last 35 years. She was 97.
She was born, Evelyn Rose Malone, on December 19, 1907, in Indian territory, just outside Spokane, Washington, and, grew up in a Mining Camp, near Wallace, Idaho, where her mother, having been widowed in 1910, had moved in order to establish a school for the children of miners who'd come to work The Sunshine Silver Mine. When her mother died, in 1930, after having remarried and been widowed once again, she took her five-year-old half-sister and went to South America to stay with a family friend. While working as a secretary to a Sports Writer on a newspaper in Panama, in 1932, she met and married Anthony Curro, a visiting American Prize Fighter, and, in 1933, she gave birth to their daughter, Marta, in Mexico City.
After returning to The States, in 1935, the couple settled in Northern California, eventually divorced, and, living in San Francisco with her daughter, Evelyn Curro began to become well-known, as "Evelyn Curro, Cable Car Artist", for, first, her drawings of same, (lithographs she made, doing her own color seperations ), and, then, Victorian Architecture, the "Gingerbread Houses" for which the Bay Area is famous, and, then, later, Fire Engines, Railroad Cars, Circus Wagons, Antique Automobiles, and, finally, Paddle Wheel Steamboats. In 1970, a book of her work was published by Chelsea House, "The American Eye Of Evelyn Curro". And, that same year, intending to write another book, she moved to Portugal, but, after breaking her right hand while renovating a former Chicken Farm, in Pechao, in the mountains above Olhao, she never did, nor did she ever again, do any art work.
She is survived by her daughter, Marta Curro, of New York City, her half-sister, Mary Jane Murray, of Irvine, California, and her two loving Grandsons, Christopher and Anthony Orbach, of New York and New Jersey, respectively, her great grandchildren, Sarah Kate and Peter Orbach, (children of Anthony) and, a cousin, Marv Winchester, of Carlock, Illinois.
No conventional service was held. Three days before she died, (having been bed-ridden at home, for the previous five months), when she was beginning to "wind down" like a lovely old clock, her devoted Portugese friends took turns sitting with her, 24 hours a day, so she wouldn't die alon., When she did die, she was "laid out" in her own bed, and, the next day, while having to wait for two days until she could be cremated, her friends gathered around her bed and told stories about her, when she was alive. The following day, when the local funeral director was free to do so, with all of her friends in procession, he took her body to the Crematorium, a five hour drive, toward Lisbon, into the mountains. Her ashes were returned to her home, to her bedroom, to await the arrival of her Grandsons, at the end of the month, who will hold a ceremony of their own choosing, to honor her, disposing of her ashes as they see fit, .....perhaps, scattering them into the bay, in Olhao, or burying them at her old "Chicken Farm", in the hills, which she had turned into a "Show Place", naming it "Keepsake Castle", a long time ago.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Evelyn Rose Malone Curro ws born in Indian territory in Spokane, Washington on Dec. 18, 1907. Evelyn grew up in a silver mining camp near Wallace, Idaho. She later lived in Mexico City where she met an American prize fighter, Anthony Curro whom she married; the marriage lasted ten years, By the late 1930s Mrs. Curro had moved to San Francisco and put her artistic talent to drawing in pen and ink cable cars and Victorian architecture. In 1970 her work was published in a book, "The American Eye of Evelyn Curro.“ In that same year she moved to Portugal where she remained until her death on March 5, 2005.
Exhibited: SF Women Artists, 1938-1940s.
Works held: California Historical Society.
| Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
| | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
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