Old Photos: Art Conquers Attica, KS

A recent post on Kansas Travel and my own visit to a gallery this week, where I was chastised by my daughter for not understanding art, reminded me that I had this set of photos from 1955 bookmarked for a long time.

It’s no Paris, but a tiny Kansas farm town grows its own crop of painters.

Up to now Attica, Kan., for all its classical name, could pass for any other tiny town in the wheatlands – a slowdown point on a rural highway leading to Wichita. But today traffic through Attica not only slows down but stops and looks. Encamped with palettes and drawing boards on the sidewalks, along the railroad, in the wheatfields are painters – singly or in bunches – recording the surroundings with the earnest concentration of Paris professionals. The painters are members of the Artists Guild of Attica, a burgeoning group that in course of three years had made the town of 622 people aware, curious and eager about art.

© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
© Time Inc.Grey Villet
Small town folks, amused women, at exhibit of paintings of lady artists of the town.© Time Inc.Grey Villet
Local lady artists painting street scene.© Time Inc.Grey Villet

This is Attica today:

View Larger Map