Juanita Gilbert, illustrator for CONVAIR (Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation)

Creator

Preview

Identifier

10007594

Description

Juanita Gilbert, illustrator for CONVAIR (Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation), circa 1943. Juanita Montgomery (1913-1997) studied as a child under Fort Worth art teachers Carrie Greathouse; Sallie Blyth Mummert -- her primary mentor from 1926-1938; and Sallie Gillespie. After graduating from Central High School in 1931, Juanita enrolled at North Texas Agricultural College (now UT Arlington), and later transferred to Texas Christian University where she studied public school art preparing to become a teacher. Caught in the Depression, Juanita turned to antique restoration, designing downtown store windows, and illustrating fine books and manuscripts for Kennedale rare book dealer Philotheleos K. Ferney. She was accepted as a student member of the Fort Worth Artists Guild and exhibited in its juried and non-juried shows in 1938 and 1939. Her professional art career was launched as the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (Convair) bomber plant opened in Fort Worth in 1942 where she became a technical illustrator working alongside other Fort Worth artists including Dickson Reeder and Kelly Fearing, preparing detailed equipment drawings for B-24 Liberator bomber and C-87 Liberator transport aircraft. In 1943, this photo of Juanita was featured in Harper's Bazaar as an example of an American woman contributing to the war effort. She married Porter Gilbert in 1943; left Consolidated briefly after the war; but returned in 1947, remaining with the company another nineteen years. Throughout her adult life, Juanita Gilbert continued to work as an artist, concentrating in watercolors and oils.

Archival Date

1943 (Approximately)

Collection Name

Montfort, Sawtelle, and Gilbert Families Papers

Collection Number

AR610

Original Format

Prints, Black & White

File Format

JPG

Rights

Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Subjects

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation; Convair; Convair employees; Illustrators; Technical Illustrators; Women Illustrators; War Efforts; Drawings