On Monday, January 12, 1998 award-winning artist Florence
Riefle Bahr died as a result of a fire in her home in Elkridge. She left
behind her thousands of sketches, paintings, and multimedia art created
not only by herself, but also by her husband, portraitist and teacher Leonard
Bahr. Although a great deal of material was damaged or destroyed by the
intense fire, the Maryland State Archives was instrumental in saving much
of their work from destruction.
Soon after the news of the fire reached the archivist at the Peabody Institute, where a retorspective of Mrs. Bahr's work was held in January of 1996, the Archives was notified and a team consisting of Curator of Artistic Properties Carol Borchert, Conservator Hanna Szczepanowska, and Wilder Stewart was sent up to the remains of the house to see what could be salvaged. Numerous sketchbooks, prints, paintings, loose sketches, and pastels were packed in their wet, smoke stained condition and brought back to the Archives.
In the conservation laboratory, Conservators Hanna Szczepanowska and Laura Triest, assisted by many other members of the Archives' Staff, worked tirelessly to seperate soaked sketches and sketchbooks, remove prints and original works from fire and water damaged frames, and spread everything out to dry in the conservation lab in an effort to prevent the pastels, watercolors, and charcoal drawings from being further damaged. When the various items had been dried, they were packed in acid-free boxes and folders and are currently being stored in the Maryland State Archives.
The
rescued materials join a collection of approximately 40 sketchbooks that
were given to the Archives by Mrs. Bahr in 1997. Mrs. Bahr was a lifelong
activist, and recorded every march and event that she attended during her
long life. The sketchbooks given to the Archives date between 1960 and
1980, and contain sketches of the trials of H. Rap Brown, the Catonsville
9, and Governor Mandel, as well as many marches, lectures and concerts.
In addition, Mrs. Bahr also took notes of the events as they were happening,
so that the visual record is supplemented often on the same page, by a
written record of the artist's impression of what was happening around
her. She has left us a valuable record of an era, and the Maryland State
Archives is proud to be able to preserve her legacy for future generations.
More photographs of the rescue effort
Images
from the sketchbooks of Florence Riefle Bahr
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