Esther Goetz & George McCoy
Esther and George “The Real” McCoy were good friends of Don and Lydia. George drove a New York Yellow Cab. Click here to view an article written by Al Hirschfeld in 1943 on George. A watercolor of Esther’s is shown below. For photographs and information, click here or on the image of the bathers.
This is Don’s article in “PM” Magazine from June 6, 1943. The text reads:
“It wouldn’t be surprising if you have seen Esther sitting on some perilous rail or curb sketching and painting away. She certainly gets around. You yourself most likely are a page in her bulging sketch book.
Lately she hasn’t had much time to gather in her favorite subject matter because she has been working over at the Navy Yard as a drafter where ships are the subjects that matter. Her amazing eye for detail comes in handy for the exactness that is needed. But in what little time there is left she continues to catch people on the go.
Esther’s art career started when she shuffled off from Buffalo just at the time everyone was singing, about going there. She made straight for th Art Students League here in New York, where she studied with John Sloan and Harry Wickey. This is where the sparks began to fly from her irresistible current of wit and warmth. She once thought she might be a singer. But she decided to leaver that to the birds and use the language of line and lyrics.
One day while Esther was painting at the base of Gen. Sherman’s statue in the 59th Street plaza, an inquisitive old woman aksed: “You go to school for that - where they got them models?” Esther said she had studied at such places. There was a long silence, then her annoyer whispered, “Beautiful girls with nothing onto them?”
Esther Becker Goetz (1907-1971) was born in Buffalo, New York and died in New York City. She studied at the Art Students League and with J. Sloan and H. Wickey as well as in Paris. She was a member of the Salon of Independent Artists and the Patteran Society, Buffalo.
Esther exhibited at the Salon of Independent Artists from 1931-44; the Salons of American in 1934; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1934; the Art Institute of Chicago in 1936 and 1939; the Boston Museum in 1935; the Village Indoor Exhibition, New York City in 1936; the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1938; the Museum of the City of New York in 1944 and 1954 and a solo exhibition there in 1945; the Albright Art Gallery 1945 (solo); Galerie Moderne, New York 1953 (solo) and a group exhibition there in 1955. Her art is in the Albright Art Gallery. Goetz was the illustrator of “Mr. Nosey” in 1945. She designed Christmas cards for Hallmark. She is also known as Mrs. George Braidwood McCoy.
