Except from Stella Shurtleff’s letter to Texas Art Association

During WWI, many art museums, as well as the American Federation of Arts, circulated numerous exhibitions based on patriotic war themes. In 1916, the MFAH held “Paintings by French Soldier-Artists” during which patrons could purchase the exhibited works, a not uncommon practice during the days of the Houston Art League. In this excerpt from a letter to the Texas Art Association, League member and art lecturer Stella Hope Shurtleff comments on an exhibition of aerial war photography, a new phenomenon made possible by the introduction of warfare flight.