Rosealie Speed was an early Texas artist, painting professionally since 1929, who has one painting in the permanent collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. She has had exhibitions in the museums of San Francisco, Kansas City, Panhandle Plains, and Tyler, Texas. Her favorite subjects were landscapes and flowers and favoring oil and watercolors. She loved painting while visiting Sante Fe, Albuquerque, and Gallup, New Mexico.
She was born November 27, 1903, in Dallas to Julian H Speed and May McCall Speed. Her family moved into the brand new Perry Heights home on Vandelia in 1927. She would live there for 77 years before she died at age 100. Rosalie attended Woodrow Wilson High School and then SMU and TWU before studying art at the Aunspaugh Art School. (Dallas’ first formal art school). Rosalie Speed worked as a commercial artist for several years doing advertisements such as the one above for Mrs. Baird’s bread. She was invited to join Frank Reaugh to travel and paint as a part of the Texas Regionalist Movement during the 1930s and 1940s.
Rosalie Speed was awarded a prize in 1935 from the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. She exhibited with fine artists such as Frances Skin, Otis Dozier, and Jerry Bywaters and was very active in the Dallas art scene.
Rosalie loved flowers, especially roses and primroses, which she grew at her Vandelia Street home. She also loved dogs and had several during her life. She took great care of her mother who was ill for several years and died in 1950. Her father lived to the age of 106. Rosalie created many beautiful images until her death in 2004 and has left the world a more beautiful place.
Michael Grauer with the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma, an essayist and image editor will be including Miss Rosalie Speed in a forthcoming volume on women artists of Texas to be published by Texas A&M University Press in the near future. For more images of Miss Rosalie Speed’s works, follow this link https://rosaliespeed.myportfolio.com/work
Thank you to the current owners of 4434 Vandelia, Bruce Jones and Hong Young for their research.
So proud of her work! Hope to find something somewhere of hers in the future. Does Texas proud!