Biography from AskART:
| The daughter of William and Margaret Frances Brown McLennan, Stella Roca (1879-1955) grew up in Nebraska City, Nebraska, and received her education at a local school, St. Joseph's Academy. During much of her adult life, she was a well-known landscape and portrait painter in Arizona, but according to sources, after graduating from St. Joseph's, she was "simply a young lady at home."
However, her entry into the Art Institute of Chicago changed that quiet existence, and she earned her certificate from there in 1908. Shortly after, she and her mother were vacationing in Portland, Oregon, and Stella received an offer through the Art Institute to teach at a large hacienda near Durango, Mexico. She accepted that position and spent two years in that position.
In Durango, she met Lautaro Roca, a silver mining engineer working in the Sierra Madre. They married in Nebraska City in 1911. She and her husband returned to the mine, but its subsequent failure caused the to return to Nebraska City, where a son, Paul, was born. Soon after, the family moved to Oakland, California, and then to San Francisco, and in 1913 to Los Gatos, California, where Lautaro Roca operated a prune ranch for two years. In 1915, the family settled in Tucson, Arizona.
Stella Roca was enchanted by the landscape. She stated: "From my first glimpse of it I have been fascinated by the charm of Arizona. The rugged mountains, brilliant skies and soft greys of the desert landscape make a pattern that is a never-ending challenge to a painter." She worked in oil and painted countless landscapes including "Early Morning Sedona" "Sabrino Canyon", and "Catalina Peak".
She painted throughout the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and Southwest, taking long car trips from Tucson, onto California, Seattle, Yellowstone National Park, back to her relatives in Nebraska City, and often returning through Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado. Sometimes she painted mountains and monasteries in Mexico.
Exhibition venues included the Arizona State Fair, Phoenix Fine Arts Association, the Lincoln (Nebraska) Artists Guild, Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, and the Tucson Fine Arts Association.
In addition to her own painting, Roca was a force in promoting art in Tucson. She was one of the organizers of the Tucson Fine Arts Association, serving twice as President, and was a member of the local Palette and Brush Club. Her work is in the collection of the Department of the Interior in Washington DC, Union High School in Yuma, Arizona, and the Tucson Women's Club.
Source:
"An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West" by Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick. This source includes an interview in 1975 with Paul Roca, her son.
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art" |
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