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May 1970. Kentucky Post

Paints Duveneck in Words

BY SIGMAN BYRD
Kentucky Post-Staff Writer

This will be a memorable summer in the life of Bill Booth, 35-year-old native of Harlan County, and his wife Louise, born in Dayton. 

At the University of Georgia, in Athens, he has just completed a doctoral dissertation that is a critical analysis of the works and influence of Frank Duveneck, Covington artist.

HE EXPECTS TO RECEIVE his Ph. D. in the history of American art at Georgia U. before the end of July.

At that time he will become the new chairman of the art department at Morehead State University, in his native state. 

From Athens, Booth reports that the University of Georgia plans an ambitious exhibition of Duveneck paintings within the next year or so.

On that occasion, he said, the university plans to publish the first complete catalog of the Covington artist's works.

BOOTH'S DISSERTATION, now in the hands of the reading committee, is 240 pages long and has 69 illustrations. It probably will be published as a book.

Art lovers in this area see evidence of a Duveneck revival looming in the near future. The occasion probably will see publication of the Booth critique, a Duveneck biography and a catalog of Duveneck's etchings as the time of the exhibition in Athens.

Booth did much of the research for his work in Covington, and particularly in the files of The Kentucky Post.

Three years ago this newspaper led a community project climaxed by the formal opening of the Duveneck Memorial Library in Covington.

IN A LETTER to The Kentucky Post, Booth says:

"Please accept my sincere thanks for the use of clippings, photographs and other materials, which have proved to be a valuable asset in writing about Duveneck.

"My thanks to your staff for the kindness and assistance they gave me in my research."

Bill Booth is the sixth of 10 children born to a Kentucky coal miner's family at Wallin's Creek, Harlan County.

Both the Booths are artists themselves. Mrs. Booth was born Louise Anne Turpin in Dayton. They were married in 1964.

BOTH TAUGHT ART in the public schools of Harlan County from 1956 to 1963. Later they taught art together at Wisconsin State University.

Booth received his bachelor's degree from Eastern State University in 1960 and his master's from Peabody College, Nashville, in 1964. In 1965 he took a third degree, specialist in education, at Peabody.