Buried: Artists Cemetery, Woodstock, Ulster County, New York, USA
Buried alongside: Wilna Hervey
Find A Grave Memorial# 143629972
Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason were artists, actresses and occasional house painters, staying together for 59 years. Known to friends and family as "Willie," Wilna Hervey grew up in affluent circumstances at Beach Ninth Street, Far Rockaway. 6’3” Wilna found some success in silent films, playing rugged mountain girls and other hardy characters. In 1919, she was cast in the role of The Powerful Katrinka in The Toonerville Trolley silent film series based on Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Folks comic strip. While Hervey was in Pennsylvania working on the production, she met the painter Nan Mason, the daughter of her co-star Dan Mason, who played the Skipper. Nan and Hervey became life partners, remaining together until Hervey's death in 1979. Wilna studied art with Winold Reiss, and Nan performed music for Edward Weston and Johan Hagemeyer. Around 1919-1920, Hervey's father bought her a studio in Bearsville, New York. She and Nan Mason split their time between painting and farming in Woodstock, New York, and pursuing acting opportunities in California, from 1922 to 1929. They became popular members of the Woodstock artists’ community, and both found some artistic success there during the 1960s. During the harsh New York winters, they also spent time in Carmel, California and Manatee County, Florida.
Together from 1920 to 1979: 59 years.
Nan Mason (1896-1982)
Wilna Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979)
Days of Love edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
ISBN-10: 1500563323
Release Date: September 21, 2014
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Cemetery: The town has long been a mecca for artists, musicians, and writers, even before the music festival made the name "Woodstock" famous. The town has a separate "Artist's Cemetery". Film and art festivals attract big names, and hundreds of musicians have come to Woodstock to record.
Address: 12 Mountainview Ave, Woodstock, NY 12498, USA (42.04325, -74.12007)
Phone: +1 845-679-2713
Website: www.woodstockartistscemetery.org
Place
The first non-indigenous settler arrived around 1770. The Town of Woodstock was established in 1787. Later, Woodstock contributed some of its territory to form the towns of Middletown (1789), Windham (1798), Shandaken (1804), and Olive (1853). Woodstock played host to numerous Hudson River School painters during the late 1800s. The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer School of the Art Students League of New York in the area, primarily for landscape painting. Ever since, Woodstock has been considered an active artists colony. From 1915 through 1931, Hervey White's Maverick Art Colony held the Maverick Festivals, "in which hundreds of free spirits gathered each summer for music, art, theater and drunken orgies in the woods."A series of Woodstock Sound-Outs were staged at Pan Copeland's Farm just over the town line in Saugerties from 1967 to 1970. These featured folk and rock acts like Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, Dave van Ronk and Van Morrison and were identified with Woodstock's reputation as a summer arts colony. The Sound-Outs inspired the original Woodstock Festival's organizers to plan their concert at the Winston Farm in Saugerties; however, the town turned down their permit, and the "Woodstock" Festival was actually held almost 60 miles (97 km) away at Max Yasgur's Farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel. Woodstock is also home to the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery, situated at the top of Mead's Mountain Road.
Life
Who: Wilna "Willie" Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979) and Nan Mason (July 17, 1896 – March 2, 1982).
Nan Mason was a member of the Woodstock Artist Colony but spent time in Carmel, California as well. As a painter, she was surrounded by her contemporaries and learned well from their interactions. Nan rests beside her partner of 59 years, Wilna Hervey, actress and Artist. Hervey appeared in a number of silent films, most notably the "Toonerville Trolley" comedies made by the Betzwood Film Company in Pennsylvania in 1920. At 6'3" and weighing nearly 300 pounds, she was perfect in the role of "Powerful Katrinka," one of the most popular characters of the "Toonerville" film series.She came from a very wealthy family and when her movie career ended in 1922, she purchased a farm in Bearsville, NY 12409, near Woodstock and lived there with her life partner, Nan Mason, for most of the rest of her life. As an artist, Wilna Hervey is best remembered for tiny exquisite enamel paintings done in a technique she pioneered. "I'm a big woman, but I want my pictures to be small," she was fond of saying. Her partner, Nan Mason concentrated on painting and photography. Both "Willie" and Nan became beloved members of the artists community that was centered in Woodstock. Well known for their eccentricities, their generosity, and the wild parties they threw, Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason are still fondly remembered in Woodstock today.
Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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