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A Pittsburgh Post Gazette article featuring the Scalp Level artists concluded: “Unlike George Hetzel, Olive Turney never gained national recognition. Her significance is as a strong regional artist who documented one family for almost four decades. Her work, especially those paintings depicting the life on the Lehman family farm, deserves a deeper investigation.”

Olive Turney’s legacy is well remembered by Society friend Frances Garman of Colver. Mrs. Garman’s great-grandfather, Adam Lehman, sold Miss Turney a half-acre plot of land on his farm in Scalp Level in 1888. He then helped build her artist’s studio/cottage known as “The Sketch Box.” 

            Frances Garman is particularly proud of an Olive Turney painting that depicts not only the beauty of the area but portrays three generations of women in her family—her great grandmother, Mary Lehman, a great aunt, Ellen Lehman Berkey and her grandmother, Ida Lehman Shumaker. It hangs in her Colver home.

As the Scalp Level artists spent their summers in the area, many local residents made their acquaintance. It is believed that many of the artists made paintings for local residents either for commission or as gifts. Many of the works of art are believed to still be in the area.

Romantic creeks, rocky banks, waterfalls and primeval forest of trees attracted artists from the Pittsburgh art colony in the mid-1800’s to a spot on the southern border of Cambria County. Every summer they would travel by train to Johnstown and take a stage over the mountain into the Scalp Level area. They boarded at the Veil Boarding House, the Faust House and other homes. Some built their own cottages. 

The forerunner of the Scalp Level group was George Hetzel (1826-1906) who discovered the area during a fishing trip.    

It is said that his first important sale was of a still life painting to Mary Todd Lincoln. Henry Clay Frick owned two paintings by Hetzel: one landscape and one still life.

George Hetzel is considered “one of Pennsylvania's most significant landscape, portrait and still life painters of the nineteenth century.”

-Judith Hansen O'Toole, Director Westmoreland Museum of American Art

            Olive Turney was one of six initial students at the Pittsburgh School of Design for Women. Originally, the curriculum trained women for careers in the design of wallpaper,  floor tile and other household motifs. The students were all daughters of craftsmen. Olive’s father, Lucian, was a carpenter.

            The emphasis of the school soon changed and Olive excelled in the fine arts, especially oil painting. She graduated in 1872 and immediately began teaching at the school.

            The headmaster, George Hetzel, began “sketching trips” into the Allegheny Mountains around 1867.    The “first generation” of Scalp Level artists, lead by Hetzel, were Alfred Wall, Trevor McClurg and Clarence Johns. Several ladies, including Olive Turney, joined the excursions and were chaperoned by Margaret Morrison Carnegie, whose son, Andrew, was a director of the school.

            In a 1994 exhibition, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art recognized 28 artists as being of the Scalp Level School.

            The Pittsburgh School of Design for Women closed in 1904 and it is unknown what Olive did for several years. But eventually she and Agnes Way opened the first woman’s art studio in Pittsburgh at 78 Fourth Ave.

            Olive Turney had the best of both worlds. She taught and ran a successful business in the city and spent her summers in the country   painting scenes around her beloved Lehman farm. She was described in an 1888 Pittsburgh magazine, The Social Mirror: “Her style is vigorous and full of color and dash. Miss Turney is a bright lady who makes warm friends.”

            By 1890, Olive had earned enough money to build a three-story, shingle-style house in East Liberty. The interior furnishings, like those in her Scalp Level studio, are described as “sparse.”

            Olive Turney died in Pittsburgh in 1937. Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Berkey (Mrs. Berkey was a Lehman) went to Pittsburgh to recover 35 of Olive’s works of art which were being stored in a second-hand shop. The art works were divided among ten members of the Lehman family. Many of the pieces depict life on the farm and members of the family.

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1977 Johnstown Flood

July 20, 2007 marked the 30th anniversary of the 1977 Johnstown Flood. A phenomenal amount of rainfall, 11.82 inches in 10 hours, was too much for both the dams and sewers in the Conemaugh Valley.

When they failed, six dams poured more than 128 million tons of water into the valley. When the Laurel Run Dam failed the water enveloped Tanneryville, which took the heaviest loss of life. 

Overall the flash floods that ensued killed 85 people and caused $325 million in damage. Downtown Johnstown was under ten feet of water.

The two previous floods in Johnstown occurred in 1889 and 1936.

A list of the victims of the Johnstown Flood of July 20, 1977

as listed on a monument in Central Park

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FALL BUS TOUR

v

LUNCHEON CRIUSE ON Lake Raystown

INCLUDING TOURS

OF

BAKER’S MANSION &

THE ROYER MANSION

THURSDAY

OCTOBER 18, 2007

APPROX 9:30AM—7:30PM

STILL IN PLANNING STAGE- VERIFY TIMES & DETAILS WHEN MAKING THE RESERVATION

FIRST COME—FIRST SERVE

LIMITED SEATING

TOUR BAKER’S MANSION IN ALTOONA

LUNCH ABOARD THE “PROUD MARY” ON LAKE RAYSTOWN– HUNTINGDON

TOUR THE ROYER MANSION IN

WILLIAMSBURG

OTHER DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED

ONLY $50

INCLUDES TOURS, LUNCH AND CRIUSE

CALL KATHY TO MAKE

RESERVATIONS

814-472-6674

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