Lou Stovall Oral History

Lou Stovall was an eminent artist in Washington, D.C., a master silkscreen printer and a longtime resident of Cleveland Park, with a backyard studio that was one of the district’s most vibrant artistic hubs. “No one has done more for more aspects of our art scene than printmaker Lou Stovall,” Washington Post art critic Paul Richard wrote in 1974, adding that Mr. Stovall’s posters “introduced a thousand Washingtonians to the pleasures of collecting.” Lou passed away in 2023 at the age of 86, and we post his Oral History to honor his memory.

Kay Kohl: Did you have a chance to realize your interest in art in your early years? In Springfield, Massachusetts?

Lou Stovall: I had an art teacher in high school whose name was Helen Norgaard, and I had learned the basics of silkscreen printmaking from her. And my first experience with silkscreen at all was through a grocery store where there was kind of a shop in the basement of the grocery store and a gentleman by the name of Al LaPierre ran the little silkscreen workshop where he'd make grocery signs. And I helped him. I discovered it because I was sent down stairs to the little shop to get something, bags or something. And I stayed so long that the manager came looking for me. I had been watching the old sign painter who was silk screening and I was just sort of standing there watching, fascinated, and he said, 'Don't just stand there, take this and put it over there.' And I took whatever he gave me and put it over there, and by the time it turned around he was putting another one in my hand. So a couple hours later the manager came looking for me, and the old sign painter said, 'This kid's pretty quick. So whenever I'm printing signs, I would like him to come and help.' So I did that.

Kay Kohl: So what brought you to D.C.? I mean, was it Howard University specifically, or—?

Lou Stovall: I had a friend who was teaching English, and I had a consuming interest in writing little stories then. And Bill Gardner—that was his name—when he discovered that I had this particular interest and writing and so on, he wanted me to come to Washington where he was teaching at Howard University, and that maybe I would find Howard University to my liking.

Kay Kohl: What was the atmosphere like at that time in the Howard arts department?

Lou Stovall: Well I had a wonderful time at Howard. Professor Porter who was the head of the art department at that particular time was just this wonderful very learned gentleman who would periodically say, 'Lou, gather up whoever is free and let's go take a ride.' And we would get into his car and he would drive us around Washington and point out the various historic buildings, but probably as important the equally important buildings that he thought were singular in texture and style color and so on. Because Washington at that time had a huge influence in its architecture from Europe. And so there were lots of areas that Professor Porter wanted us to go, and we did that.

Kay Kohl: But what really helped to focus in on silkscreen print as your primary medium? Because you painted, you drew, you had many types of expertise.

Lou Stovall: Right. Well I was painting and drawing and making silkscreen prints which were very sort of minor because I was doing what my teacher had taught me to do. But I had also become the high school poster maker during those years. And whenever I would complete one, there would always be another theme or another idea for the next one. And so I pretty much spent my high school years reading, writing, and making posters.

Kay Kohl: When you graduated from Howard in the '60s, in the mid 60s, that was a really interesting time in Washington, D.C.

Lou Stovall: Well I had found a community here that I was very interested in. There was certainly a need for someone like myself who was willing and capable of making the posters because we were doing protest posters during that time. I was making posters for the S.N.C.C. and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and we were protesting all kinds of things. And there were lots of volunteers that carried the posters and signs and so on and not so many people available to make them. So I was busy all of my time.

Kay Kohl: Well, in the 1960s, the Washington School of color painting was very prominent. And I'm just wondering how you would describe the influence of that color school movement on the D.C. art community as you saw it.

Lou Stovall: Well, in the mid '60s, the Washington Color School had taken hold and the interest of making colorful designs. Otherwise painting was something that everyone was interested in and I think my appeal, or the appeal to me, were these artists that I had met who were fascinated with silkscreen because silkscreened color is bright, and there was lots of variety of colors and so on. And of course you could make multiples. And so I was doing a lot of poster making in addition to some early silkscreen print making projects brought to me by the Washington artists at that particular time. And some of them who had money would pay small amounts of money to have their images made, and those who had no money, I did them at no charge.

Kay Kohl: Your wife Di, short for Diana, is also an artist. How did you two meet?

Lou Stovall: From Howard University, the word kind of went out that I would be willing to teach anyone printmaking as I understood it who came forward and wanted to learn. One thing led to another, and I was invited to Columbus, Georgia, to give a silkscreen demonstration to the students there at the Columbus College of Art. And I met Di there. As a matter of fact, Di was one of the people who was instrumental in inviting me. And so I traveled to Georgia, met her family, and went to Columbus College to demonstrate silkscreen. And I was so fascinated with—I say as a joke that I was fascinated with me and silkscreen—that we became friends. And a couple of years later, as I continued making silkscreens, Di moved to Washington in order to attend the Corcoran College of Art.

So her arrival at the Corcoran College was sort of not really blessed, because there was such competition during that time for who was going to make art and who was going to receive commissions and that kind of thing. So I had an arrangement with Di that she would help me with whatever I was doing. And in exchange for helping, I had gotten her a job at that particular time with the silkscreen studio where I was working. And she became the driver because I never learned to drive. And so she drove me wherever I needed to go with the signs and posters and so on. By that time we were primarily making real estate signs on metal and so Di was the principal driver and delivery person and she delivered me and whatever work we had accomplished.

Kay Kohl: Speaking of real estate, when did you move to Cleveland Park and what drew you to this neighborhood?

Lou Stovall: Well, I guess I was basically from my very beginning kind of a person who was attracted to people and friendships. And I had met a lot of people by that time. I guess I'd moved to Washington in 1962 and I was here for five or six years between Howard University and sort of getting started in the community and there were actually a huge number, an appreciable number of people who were also involved in silkscreen and wanted to learn it because it was a brand new medium and it with economical to do. People were very, very happy to learn it in exchange for lessons on how to do it. And so that's what happened there.

Kay Kohl: How did you find this particular home?

Lou Stovall: Well I also, in addition to making the posters for the community, found that I was attracted to D.C. politics and had met certain people and we also realized that we really had a community that we were that we really liked being involved in. Di and I had become married, dating first and one thing leading to another, and finally married. And we decided that we needed a permanent place to live and work. I just needed more space. At that particular time we were mostly centered around Dupont Circle. And Dupont Circle was where everything seemed to be happening. There were lots of artists around Dupont Circle. There was a gallery there and the man who was director of the gallery, whose name was Walter Hopps, and a friend of mine, whose name was Lloyd McNeill, were both fascinated with silkscreen prints and what was happening there and we decided that we should have a permanent place for working and. Places were not that much available. So we decided we would move north of Dupont Circle and we ended up in Cleveland Park where we found a wonderful home that was adequate, had enough room, had a three car garage, which we then doubled in size to make a permanent studio which is where we are now.

And it was a wonderful place to work and live. We had great neighbors who didn't seem to be bothered by all the activity that we brought up because we did bring a lot of activity. But there were also lots of young people who came from this area of Cleveland Park, you know, to work with us. And so it became, not a commune, because no one lived here except Di and myself, but it was kind of a 20-hour-a-day workspace. We had people, you know, coming with assignments and supplies and materials, and we made whatever it was that we were making and then they would leave and then another group would come. And so it was wonderful during that time.

Kay Kohl: So when you moved to Cleveland park and you were settling in, do you remember what your impression was?

Lou Stovall: One of the things that we always loved was having the school kids come to our studio and we would teach them sort of the rudiments of silkscreen. They were in grammar and elementary school.

Lou Stovall: And we had a problem, a traffic problem, where the traffic moving along Reno Road was so fast that it was dangerous and there was in fact a couple of accidents. So we were afraid that some little kids would be hit by cars and so on. And by that time I had been so, I guess, well established in Washington as kind of an artist community person and so on, and I had met and really adored my friendship with Marion Barry at that particular time. And so I asked Marion if he would come up and just sort of stand at the corner with me to see all the traffic and note how quickly and how fast people were driving. And so he said that he would do that and he came and did that twice. He did it once in the morning for the rush hour traffic and did it a second time in the afternoon. And so some of the neighbors who didn't know me as well as some others were so impressed with that, that I could get the mayor to come out and help slow the traffic down.

Kay Kohl: Tell us that. What did you do to slow it down?

Lou Stovall: He just stood there.

Kay Kohl: You didn't put in lights or anything?

Lou Stovall: No, because we were told that we couldn't have more light because that would be a traffic problem. And there was some sort of statute between Maryland and D.C. that we had to move the traffic, or the traffic had to be moved, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. But they didn't have to go speeding as it was. And so Marion's standing there on a corner with me with a couple of police cars automatically slowed the traffic down, and then signs were put in because it takes a while to get things like that done that would slow the speed down. And then some lanes were dedicated as left turn lanes and so on. And that helped a lot.

Kay Kohl: Well it obviously had influence. Was there a lot of socializing on your street?

Lou Stovall: Yeah. There was lots of socializing and we eventually had something that we call the Cleveland Park or Newark Street block party, where we invited a lot of the children who had come to our studio to work with us and to learn silkscreen. We had hot dog roasts and the parents came and so on. It was just a wonderful sense of community.

Kay Kohl: Well, you noted that you had been involved in D.C. government, and I think you served on the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities? What would you say was, or how would you describe the work of that commission?

Lou Stovall: Well, the most notable thing that the commission did, because there were so many artists in Washington who were in need of help financially —I think it was Tony Gittens, who established something called the Art Bank. And the Commission then bought artwork from those artists and had a building where they stored it until some D.C. organization like the traffic department and also the police department and lots of the organizations that are considered city organizations, they needed artwork on their walls because the walls were empty and so a lot of the art that was purchased from the various artists—and I mean by that time there were several hundred, maybe more, artists who were all making posters or prints or paintings or whatever. And it was all purchased. And instead of the artists hoping for sales and for grants. The D.C. Commission decided they would purchase the artwork, which would be similar to having a grant, you know, or a gift. And D.C. would receive something for the money that was given out. And so that was a wonderful thing that was done.

Kay Kohl: As a master silkscreen printer, you've collaborated with a number of artists. I mean many prominent artists. Joseph Elbers, Alexander Calder, Jacob Lawrence, Sam Gilliam, just to name a few, have all looked to commission you to print their work. What do you most enjoy about your chosen art?

Lou Stovall: Well, the simple answer is that I love working, and it doesn't, I think it doesn't really matter to me...At that particular time, when I was building my career as a print maker or as a professional print maker. It didn't really matter to me who I was working for or with as long as I was working and the art kept getting better and more defined. And the artists that I was attracted to or the artists who were attracted to me who were in Washington at that particular time really loved the idea of coming to the workshop and making new art and having lots of people in and out seeing it. Because the community really sort of treated our workshop as something that was great to have in the community. And so people would come and visit and bring their friends both from in town and out of town. And it was just a wonderful, you know, sort of thing.

Kay Kohl: Can you talk just a little bit about these collaborations and how they went forward knowing that each one is different, but just the basics, how you collaborate?

Lou Stovall: Well I had decided that I indeed wanted to be the world's best silkscreen print maker. But to do that, I needed ideas. And while I was very capable in terms of making the prints, I didn't have all the ideas because I was so busy perfecting my involvement with the medium. So getting ideas of what to print became a nice thing. So the artists who came to me to have their work done were impressed with the fact that whatever they wanted to do I was willing to do it, because it was all like an adventure. And that's the way we treated it.

Lou Stovall: Especially people who came to Washington to live were fascinated with the fact that there was actually an art movement here, however disorganized it might have been. But all you had to do was show up and get involved. And so that was something that was really a great attraction to people. And then we have a big art consciousness here in Washington.

Kay Kohl: You talking patrons, too?

Lou Stovall: No I'm talking about the National Gallery for instance, and the Phillips, and the Smithsonian. All of that was of interest to people because it contributed to this sort of mindset of what was going on in Washington that made this a wonderful city. And also the sharing of ideas and movements and so on. Somehow we've managed to skip over one idea that I had was to say that the political movements like the antiwar things that we did, and the S.N.C.C., and the Civil Rights movement and so on—all of that sort of was part of the contributing factor of what made Washington a great place to be and people who came to Washington visit often ended up staying. And as it is now, looking back on the so-called riots that we had in Washington, and when that was over, and then getting Washington rebuilt and reenergized. Lots of what is still going on was a wonderful thing. And so I have a feeling that we were involved in rebuilding the city, not only from its beginnings, because that was historic, but from a point of view of when the city from time to time was destroyed. Our most recent experience of Washington, D.C. being destroyed was from the late '60s. And then getting it restarted again and having certain sections of Washington rebuilt and reenergized.

It makes me think of one movement that was not really a movement but that had to do with caring, because that's a lot of what happens in Washington: that people cared about Washington and what had happened and who was here.