La Tour, Onya (1896-1976)

Onya La Tour was born Ona Tarr on April 7, 1896 in Washington, Indiana (daughter of Simon and Elva Hardin Tarr). It is unclear when she adopted the name Onya La Tour.
Onya attended Graceland College in Lamona, Iowa. While there, she met Scotch violinist Albro Kellock, and the two were married on December 3, 1920 in Jeffersonville, Indiana. In 1921 they applied to the U.S. government for a 160-acre homestead located 40 miles north of Spokane, Washington. While living on the homestead, Onya’s daughter Manya was born. After five years on the land, a forest fire swept the area and destroyed the home. In the wake of the fire, Onya and Albro moved to Seattle, Washington. It was while living in Seattle that Onya began to collect modern art, with the purchase of two pieces by Kenneth Calahan. At this time she also became acquainted with many artists in the Northwest and her home became a meeting place for “architects, writers, musicians and revolutionaries in all the arts” (Indianapolis Sunday Star, March 3, 1940).
Onya began traveling extensively in the 1930s, including a trip to Europe in 1934 during which Manya was brought to a boarding school in Paris. Onya’s home base at this time had moved to California, where she developed a close relationship with artist A. Franz Brasz. The two shared a studio in the Beechwood area of Hollywood.
In 1935 Onya moved to Puerto Rico with Antonio Colorado, where she became the director of an art gallery there. While in Puerto Rico, Onya continued her correspondence with many artists, including Brasz, John Graham, Gerard Hordyck, Helen West Heller, Philip Sawyer, and Max Raphael. After deciding not to marry Colorado in 1935, Onya moved to New York City where she worked for the Federal Art Gallery (part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project) and on other WPA projects intermittently until 1939.
While in New York, Onya La Tour became acquainted with many artists, art dealers, and gallery owners. She was heavily influenced by the Société Anonyme and became good friends with its president, Katherine Dreier. Onya began a romantic relationship with Maurice Jungbeck, and the two moved into a studio on Riverside Drive together on their anniversary in October 1936. Her personal collection of artwork expanded significantly at this time, and her diaries and daybooks document many purchases and gifts of artwork, which she often acquired directly from the artists. Onya also sat as a model for a variety of artists while she lived in New York. She continued to sit for portraits created in a variety of media for over a decade.
On October 22, 1937, Onya opened the Onya La Tour Gallery at 596 Riverside Drive in New York City with an exhibition of artwork from her personal collection. The gallery featured multiple exhibits from 1937 through 1939. As a result of occasional disputes with Jungbeck, Onya began to spend some time in Indianapolis in 1938 and 1939.
On July 5, 1939 Onya received the news that WPA employees (including those working on the Federal Art Project) had their hours cut. On August 10, she received a dismissal slip from the WPA. Without this income Onya was forced to apply for government assistance and to pursue other opportunities for continuing her career. While visiting Indiana in August 1939, she made an offer to purchase a 118-acre farmstead in Brown County. The Onya La Tour Gallery in New York was closed that spring.
By the time she moved to the Brown County farm in March 1940, Onya’s intentions to open the Indiana Museum for Modern Art were widely known. The museum featured pieces from Onya’s personal collection of over 500 modern artworks representing over 100 artists.
Soon after her move to Indiana, Onya constructed her home which she called “Spellbound House” (sometimes referred to as “Blue Cloud”). In 1961 there was a fire at Spellbound House which destroyed a number of priceless artworks and some of Onya’s personal possessions. While her home base remained in Indiana from 1940 to the end of her life, Onya spent time working for and with Katherine Dreier in New York on occasion in the 1940s, and she regularly traveled in and outside of the United States.
Later in her life, Onya married Carl McCann, a Hoosier patron of the arts. The two designed their dream home and construction was completed in 1968. Death dissolved their marriage. In 1972, Onya La Tour gifted what remained of her personal art collection to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. On June 2, 1976 Onya la Tour died after a long illness. She willed some of her money to Brown County to build a community center for the arts and social activities.