Warree Carmichael LeBron
Warree Carmichael LeBron (1910-1998) was an American Impressionist artist and founding member of the Dixie Art Colony, along with her mother, Sallie Carmichael, and her distant cousin, noted painter John Kelly Fitzpatrick. Though LeBron painted portraits and still lifes, landscapes were her favorite genre and dominated her portfolio.
LeBron was born Warree Carmichael in Elba, Coffee County, on January 23, 1910, to Sallie Boyd and Malcolm Carmichael, a judge and delegate to Alabama’s 1901 Constitutional Convention. In her early years, the name was spelled “Warre.” She was the youngest of four siblings, one of whom died in infancy. Born into a prominent family, her father was a half-brother to U.S. Representative Archibald Hill Carmichael of Dale County. The Carmichaels moved to Montgomery after Malcolm accepted the position of U.S. Referee in Bankruptcy in 1915, to oversee bankruptcy proceedings. LeBron graduated from Sidney Lanier High School in 1926. She later enrolled in Sullins College, a women’s junior college in Bristol, Virginia, from which she earned a degree in art in 1928. In the summer of 1929, LeBron studied painting in New York City at Columbia University’s Department of Fine Arts, where she also served as a student assistant. During this term, she observed art classes at the Horace Mann preparatory school in the Bronx.
Upon her return to Montgomery in the fall of 1929, LeBron opened an art studio in her home on Cloverdale Road and offered instruction in painting and drawing. The following summer, she returned to New York to further her studies at the Arts Students’ League. Between teaching art lessons and spending summers in New York, LeBron also earned her bachelor of arts degree from the Woman’s College of Alabama, present-day Huntingdon College, in 1931. Despite her numerous educational pursuits, she later claimed that she did not enjoy collegiate art classes, in which she believed regimentation ruled over individuality.
After taking classes at the recently established Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) Museum School with its director, her cousin John Kelly Fitzpatrick, LeBron joined the staff as an assistant instructor in the summer of 1931. She quickly adopted Fitzpatrick’s artistic philosophy of looking for and painting the beauty that one sees, and she credited him for being her most influential teacher. In June 1932, LeBron sailed to France to study at the School of Fine Arts at Fontainebleau under French painters Gaston Balande, Jean Despujols, and André Strauss. While abroad, LeBron spent much of her time painting outdoors, observing the forests, village streets, and surrounding countryside. After she returned stateside in late fall, the MMFA mounted a solo exhibition of her paintings, including many French landscapes. In one of these works, Seine near Fontainebleau (1932), LeBron uses soft brushstrokes and a color palette of blues and greens to render a quiet, idyllic scene.
Together with Fitzpatrick, LeBron and her mother, Sallie, founded the Dixie Art Colony (DAC) with the goal of fostering an interest in southern art and bolstering arts education throughout the South. Sallie helped finance the colony, and, alongside her daughter Caroline, LeBron’s sister, acted as hostess and housekeeper. The colony’s inaugural season on Lake Martin spanned two weeks during the summer of 1933, with nine students in attendance. LeBron served as an instructor.
In 1934, Warree married Adolphe LeBron, then a surveyor with the Soil Conservation Department. The couple would have three children. Throughout the 1930s, LeBron’s paintings were regularly displayed at the annual exhibitions of the Alabama Arts League. (Founded by Fitzpatrick in 1930 to exhibit paintings, the Alabama Arts League was a forerunner of the MMFA.) Her painting, Treckin, depicting an African American dance, was included in New York at the Municipal Art Committee’s third annual National Exhibition of American Art in 1938.
The LeBrons relocated to Montezuma, Georgia, in late 1938 after Adolphe accepted a government position as an agronomist in Macon County. Warree continued exhibiting her work in Georgia, including in shows sponsored by the Macon Art Association and the Association of Georgia Artists. While living in Georgia, she remained active in the Montgomery arts circle and the DAC, which reached its peak attendance in 1940. The DAC began to wane, however, after her mother Sallie suffered a stroke in 1945 and was no longer able support the program. Lacking the financial support of its patron, the DAC discontinued its sessions from 1948 until 1955 when LeBron reopened the colony for summer gatherings at her home in Rockford, Coosa County, where she had moved the family to in 1951.
LeBron dubbed the home “Hatchetoy” because of its position at the convergence of the Hatchet and Socopatoy Creeks. With its surrounding 500 acres, Hatchetoy became both an oasis for visiting artists, as well as a personal refuge where she would live for the rest of her life. She drew continual artistic inspiration from Hatchetoy’s surrounding landscape. In Hatchet Creek (1965), LeBron captures blooming azaleas in spring, while in Scenes of Seasons Near Hatchet Creek (Fall) (n.d.), she showcases the vibrant orange, red, and yellow leaves of autumn. LeBron identified with the Impressionist art movement, as she often painted outside to observe sunlight and convey nature’s fleeting moments with loose, thick brushstrokes and rich colors.
LeBron joined the staff of Sylacauga High School in 1956 as an art instructor and held the position until 1965. She took several international trips with her husband, including to Europe and Central America, prior to his death in 1975. She painted scenes from her travels, including steeples in Poland and marketplaces in El Salvador. By 1975, LeBron had sold roughly 2,000 paintings, and her work was held in public and private collections in 29 states and three countries. She continued teaching in her home throughout the 1980s, but largely stopped exhibiting, choosing instead to focus solely on painting. LeBron died on March 2, 1998, and was buried in the family cemetery in Rockford.
