Bertha Graves Morey (1882-1962) -- student

A lifelong Ottumwa, Iowa resident and daughter of a local industrialist, Bertha Graves Morey was an artist of many interests, excelling in photography, landscape painting, and handicrafts. While a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Morey won a prize for silk design from the Art Alliance of America (1918). Her talents also included bookplate design, for which she was in demand. In 1931, a traveling watercolor exhibit, coordinated by the American Federation of Arts and the Little Gallery of Cedar Rapids (IA), held a showing in Ottumwa. Morey served as the exhibit’s curator, widely known as a talented painter.

The artist had three significant events occur in her life during 1932. She attended the first session of the Stone City art colony and experienced the deaths of her father and brother-in-law. Morey assumed operation of the Morey Clay Products Company, a factory that produced roughly seven million paving bricks each year and featured a continuous kiln, one of the world’s largest, designed and built by her father. Morey managed the business for several years, all the while pursuing her art interests.

Morey won second-place honors in a statewide, photography competition (1936); the University of Iowa Camera Club selected her image of a Keosauqua (IA) well in their historical site category. Coverage of Miss Morey’s 1930s achievements in the Ottumwa Courier (IA) often cited her busy portrait photography sideline. Morey also exhibited in a 1938 show to launch the new art gallery at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa; her creative output expanded to include jewelry design and charcoal sketches. Morey’s family company ceased operations in 1990; she remained in the community and died there in July 1962.

Online Resources on Bertha Graves Morey:

Lemberger, Michael W., and Wilson J. Warren. “ "Morey Clay Products Company." In Ottumwa. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006. Available: http://books.google.com/books?id=7tAgAuOGN3oC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=%22ottumwa+brick+and+construction%22&source=web&ots=grHtiZ95ho&sig=eIN_xpJJr465xWcQFffnk4Y7zPc

Fowler, Alfred, ed. “Directory of Bookplate Artists, 1921.” Available: http://www.ancestorinfo.com/directory_of_bookplate_artists.htm