Julia G. Severance Papers, 1912-1955, 1957, undated

A gifted artist, Julia Gridley Severance designed the still-official Oberlin College seal and was noted for her many pieces of sculpture and works of art.

She was born in Oberlin on January 11, 1877. Her father, James R., graduated from the College in 1868 and from the Seminary in 1871. Her mother, Rosa Gridley, studied at Oberlin from 1865 to 1871.

At a very early age Julia Severance could draw as well as write and she thought it strange that everybody could not do the same. She first studied at the Chicago Art Institute and continued her artwork in connection with her studies at Oberlin. She was a regular student in the College of Arts and Sciences from 1896-99, a special student in 1899-1900, and took special courses in fine arts and music for several additional years. She also studied in the Cleveland Art School, in Italy, and with the New York Art Students’ League. In 1941 she commented that, though she never received a degree, she had “four years’ training in lines of my own choosing.”

In the June 1922 Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Arthur S. Kimball ’15, then professor of singing, discussed her “great gifts for portraying human character and attributes in the round or in relief” and the fact that she was “always conspicuous for fine drawing from casts and from nature.”

When the architect for Wilder Hall (Men’s Building) wanted a college seal (now displayed above the entrance to Wilder’s main lounge), he asked Severance to develop a design from the wording of the bylaws and the shapes in the old college seal, which was three feet in diameter. The trustees decided to have a new seal made from her design and she made several casts, about 12 inches in diameter. One was cast in bronze for the president’s office.

In 1916 Severance received an award in sculpture at the Women’s Artists’ Club in Cleveland. In 1917 she gave an exhibition of sculptures at the home of Delphine Hanna ’01 A.M., then professor of physical education, in Florida. In 1921 she designed the Leffingwell bronze tablet in the Chapel of St. Mary’s School in Knoxville, Illinois. Several hundred copies of her etchings of Florida scenes decorated guest rooms at the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. She exhibited sculpture and etchings at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1925.

“Neither the accuracy of the camera nor the skill of its manipulator can ever compete with those subtle gifts of the sculptor at their best,” wrote Mr. Kimball in 1922. As proof of Julia Severance’s ability, he cited the Leffingwell tablet, two low reliefs of Miss Severance’s parents, a portrait of Elizabeth Swing ’07, a portrait bust of the late Prof. G. Frederick Wright, and portraits of F. Champion Ward ’32, and his sister, the late Helen Ward ’32. The Ward portraits were mentioned “as only two of many similar ones that adorn the homes and gladden the hearts of fond parents, fixing for all time the passing beauty of childhood.”

Julia G. Severance died March 9, 1972, in Chula Vista, California.

Sources Consulted

Oberlin Alumni Magazine (May/June 1972).