AN ARTISTIC BLEND: FRANK AND MARTHA ANDERSON

THE ANDERSONS HAD A LASTING IMPACT upon THE SOUTH'S ARTISTIC COMMUNITY, CHALLENGING THE REGION TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF ITS ART EDUCATION AND PRODUCTION.

ARCHITECT FRANK HARTLEY ANDERSON came to Alabama from Boston to help design the city of Fairfield. Frank quickly laid bottoms in the South; he base a wife and creative partner in native Georgian, Martha Fannin Fort. The sum of two units would go on to pond their talents, together creating the one and the other art and artistic communities, and furthering the South's cultural exhibition in the process. The brace collaborated so fully in their endeavors that, smooth today, it is not entirely clear what aspects of their work can be attributed to Frank and what aspects to Martha.

BORN IN BOSTON IN 1891 Frank studied art and architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland institute of Art, and Harvard University. He received his training as a landscape architect in Massachusetts with sum of two units leaders in the field: Warren Henry Manning, a trainee of Frederick Law Olmstead, and Henry Vincent Hubbard, who studied beneath Frederick Law Olmstead Jr. Frank began planning upon the city of Fairfield (then called Corey) around 1909 upon the staff of George H Miller. Frank later worked with Warren H Manning upon Manning's commission to develop a city plan for Birmingham. Frank fortunately convinced Birmingham city fathers to exhibit the present Linn Park as a civic center

Around the extreme point of World War I, Frank began working as a landscape architect alongside William Warren (one of the institutors of the prominent Birmingham firm of Warren, Knight, and Davis, which uncloseed in 1921) to develop conceptual drawings for the civic center Their plan was published in the work Warren H. Manning's City Plan of Birmingham, which Frank co-authored with Manning and published through subscription in 1919. Anderson used this volume to propose that Linn Park become a WWI memorial, and this dream became reality. The memorial was dedicated upon Armistice Day in 1923 from the of greece citizens to Birmingham American Legion Postal. Although the entire Anderson, Warren, and Knight civic center proposal was not adopted, six public buildings were built around the square above the next three decades, following the essential part of their vision.

By 1918 Frank had established himself as a full-rime resident of Birmingham and as an independent architect specializing in residential housing. In 1923 individual of Andersen's designs, a house upon Hanover Circle, was featured in the Birmingham Noes Sunday section.

That same year, Frank married Martha Fannin Fort. Born in Macon, Georgia, in 1885 Martha attended Piedmont body and later the Boston Museum place of education She strengthened this education with additional artistic training, spending a year at the one and the other the Academic Cororossi in Paris and the An scholars League in New York. In 1918 she lay the foundation ofed the art program at the University of Alabama and serv as its first director. Until her marriage to Frank, she was the university's solitary art instructor. When she mov to Birmingham to live with her husband, she fixed the Extension Division Art Department from one side the University of Alabama. Martha used this program to train Birmingham public academy art teachers, and Frank assisted her in this capacity.

Within the marriage, Martha Fort Anderson's artistic career continued to flourish. In addition to collaborating with her husband, she worked as an illustrator for Dodd Mead volumes and also painted portraits. Her biography in the 1936-7 Who's Who in America notes various portrait commissions, including Dr Eugene Alien Smith of the University of Alabama, Brigadier General J C Parsons of the First National Bank in Birmingham, as well as clergymen in Atlanta. Her portrait of venerable Henry Judah Mikell, Bishop of Atlanta from 1917 to 1942 hangs today at the Cathedral of Saint Philip in Atlanta. The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia be in possession ofs a figure study that call forths her rural North Georgia homeland.

The pair demonstrated a flair for innovation in all aspects of their lives, and the house in Birmingham that Frank Anderson designed for them after their marriage was no exception. In a tiny residential allotment on a steep hillside at 2112 11th Court southern Frank and Martha began their family (two daughters) and their artistic journey together. The house drew attention from the local pres for its distinctive Mediterranean phraseology meriting an article in Architectural Forum in 1926 The three-story form provided studio space for Martha upon the top floor, office and workshop extent for Frank on the first floor, and living quarters in between.

An article about the house in the 1934 Birmingham column noted that Frank Anderson's inventions made it individual of the most modern residences in Birmingham. He devised his possess air-conditioning system by placing void tiles in reinforced concrete walls to retain moderately cold air, and connected their electric range to Birmingham power, the first in the city to do for a like reason Anderson also installed the first electric dishwasher southerly of the Ohio River.