Joseph Roy (J. R.) Willis’s life was full of plot twists and plenty of color. It also, contrastingly, had a steady rhythm and followed an orderly pattern. He was a legendary character in Albuquerque, with a recognizable style and eccentric flair, known for wearing capes, twirling canes, and smoking Pall Mall cigarettes.1 At the same time, he was described by contemporaries as the “kind of artist you would like to meet. Not wild-eyed or long haired, more of the Southern Colonel type.”2 His career was, in a sense, similarly paradoxical. Willis was both a self-identified “conservative” fine artist and an enterprising, innovative businessman.
Willis began his career as a political cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution during the 1898 Spanish-American War. He also worked as a commercial illustrator for fashion magazines before moving to New York City to attend the Chase Art School (now the Parsons School of Design) in the early 1900s. There, he studied with famous artist Robert Henri and worked for the McGraw-Hill publishing company. His next job was as a “chalk talk” artist on the vaudeville circuit. While working in vaudeville, he met Violet Powell, for whom he would leave his first wife and three children. Willis and Violet had a daughter together and eventually, Willis moved with his new family to California and found work as a set designer and painter in Hollywood. He also became a pioneer of early animation.
In 1917, on his way to New York City via train, Willis stopped in Laguna, NM, curious about the Hopi Snake Dance. This brief first experience in New Mexico spawned a lifelong interest. That same year, Willis moved to Gallup, NM, and bought a camera store (he was a skilled photographer on top of everything else). He became immediately and deeply involved in Gallup civic life as a Shriner, Chamber of Commerce member, and a charter Kiwanis Club member. He helped start the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial (an annual event ongoing since 1922), understanding that the event would be good for business and hoping to sell cameras to attendees.
Indeed, as an artist and entrepreneur, Willis quickly caught on to—and, in turn, helped to spur—the tourist market. By 1923, he was producing his first photo postcards of Gallup events and landmarks for sale in his shop. Over the course of the decade, Willis toured the Grand Canyon, the Four Corners area, and the greater Southwest making photographs and sketches that he turned into postcards and oil paintings. In 1930, he bragged that he had the “largest line of scenic postcards in the Southwest.”3
Tragedy struck in May 1931, however, when his daughter died of polio. The artist and his wife moved to Albuquerque shortly thereafter and in 1932 Willis established a studio in Old Town Albuquerque. Still, he kept up the “motoring” habit that had begun after settling in Gallup. For over two decades, he maintained a seasonal regime of heading south for the winter (to Miami, New Orleans, Texas, Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, and—at least once—Guatemala), returning every spring or summer to the Grand Canyon to paint from the Art Room at the Bright Angel Lodge,4 and attending the Hopi Snake Dance and Gallup Ceremonial before catching the changing leaves in Taos in the fall . All the while, Willis sketched, made films, and took photographs to supply his postcard and painting business.
By the end of the 1930s, Willis was a well-known New Mexico artist and his name was synonymous with pictures of “Indian heads” and aspens.5 The artist admitted part of why he was attracted to these subjects was because they were commercially successful. An article describing him as a “Wall Street financier type of man” quoted him as saying “I paint Indians, aspens. They are attractive and sell.”6 Willis’s commercial success was recognized in tandem with his artistic talent. For instance, one review noted that “Mr. Willis has painted in the state for many years and has developed a technique for [typical New Mexico scenes] which has been admired and has found its way into many homes.”7 Cultural critic and influencer Ina Sizer Cassidy aptly classified Willis as a”‘soldier of fortune’ in the arts.”8
While the Great Depression certainly affected Willis—he was hired through the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and Works Progress Administration, both need-based programs, to do murals in the mid-1930s—he appears to have been less harmed than many. Willis was truly a savvy entrepreneur who utilized novel (for their time) sales techniques such as layaway and a generous exchange policy.
Indeed, Willis was a leader within Albuquerque’s art scene. He served as treasurer of the Art League of New Mexico for many years and was involved in the Albuquerque Artists Guild as well. In the fight between modernism and realism that defined the era, Willis was a staunch realist, perhaps for both ideological and commercial reasons. “I have not had time to experiment with the various ‘isms’ jumping from stone to stone but have stuck consistently to my individuality, not copying the fleeting styles coming from abroad,” he said.9 Willis’s beliefs were thrown into relief as he was often compared to his contemporary Brooks Willis, a high-profile modernist who advocated an experimental approach, given their shared surname and because they often exhibited alongside each other. (The two were not related.) For Willis’s part, the associations he most prized and publicized were his professional relationships with artists E. Martin Hennings and Albert Lorey Groll, a member and associate member, respectively, of the exclusive and traditional Taos Society of Artists.
Willis also promoted himself and moonlit as an armchair historian, traveling to Mexico to “research” early Spanish exploration,10 presenting lectures accompanied by photographs and motion pictures on topics such as Indigenous arts and culture and Cabeza de Vaca. While not atypical for his time, Willis’s perspective on New Mexico history and Indigenous cultures was predominately stereotypical, as is indicated by his choice to “wear an authentic Indian buckskin coat embroidered with porcupine quills valued at $125 with fine headdress, authentic moccasins, and deer-toe necklace and Umatilla Indian gloves” to the Art League of New Mexico ball in 1938.11 These attitudes make both his status as a “scholar” and his artworks problematic.
Willis painted, exhibited, and ran his business until his death in 1960.
