Blue Hyacinth, 1950 
EVALINE CLARK SELLORS . American (1903 - 1995)
Terra cotta painted clay. Gift of Mary Eleanor Witherspoon. 1995.013

Born to Irish immigrant parents, Evaline Clark Sellors was born in Fort Worth, Texas. By the age of six, Sellors became interested in clay and the casting process after learning about casting from an encyclopedia. Growing up on a farm, Sellors was very interested in the clay that emerged as her father dug wells. At age eight, her parents enrolled her in private art lessons. Sellors went on to study at a prep school for girls at Texas Wesleyan College, where she was instructed by Pennsylvania Academy of Arts graduate, Samuel Ziegler. Upon Ziegler's recommendation, Sellors enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy after attending Washington University in St. Louis. It was her professors at Washington University who first persuaded Sellors to study sculpture, which she pursued full-time at the Pennsylvania Academy. While at the Pennsylvania Academy, Sellors received several scholarships that allowed her to travel and study abroad, where she learned casting techniques and acquainted herself with the art movements across Europe.


Sellors returned to Fort Worth during the Great Depression where she, with fellow Fort Worth artists Wade Jolly and Blanche McVeigh, began the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts. Her friendships with fellow Fort Worth artists made her an active member of the Fort Worth Circle. Later, Sellors taught at the school and took on projects for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Project. Many other public commissions followed after her time with the WPA, including several well-known sculptures at Farrington Field. During WWII, Sellors used her technical skills to instruct the women in the "mock-up department" of North American Aviation in Grand Prairie where they made plane parts. The exposure to industrial processes and forms greatly influenced her work, leading her down a more "modern" path focused on simplicity.

Following WWII, Sellors became increasingly interested in ceramic processes and experimented frequently with glazes and "new" clays. She was attracted to the chemical interaction of plants and the color outcomes they caused with the clay. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Sellors held solo exhibitions across the country and continued to teach with the Fort Worth Art Association. In 1971 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Dallas Craft Guild for her dedication to teaching. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Sellors focused almost entirely on architectural commissions, producing many wonderful collaborative works with architects and environmental designers. Evaline Sellors died in 1995 at the age of 92.