Author discusses new book on Gag family

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--The newest book about Anton Gag and daughters Wanda and Flavia "records their achievement in art," author Julie L'Enfant told members of the Junior Pioneers of New Ulm and Vicinity Saturday night at Turner Hall.

Her book, The Gag Family German-Bohemian Artists in America, tells the story of how Anton's love of art and music carried over to his family, principally Wanda and Flavia.

The book is expected to be published this spring by Afton Press in Afton.

"The Gag family was peasants, farmers and craftsman in their native Bohemia," L'Enfant said. "Life there was hard for peasants so in 1873 they emigrated to America."

L'Enfant said Anton found his way across the country to St. Paul where he stayed and worked before moving to New Ulm. His stay in St. Paul wasn't a good experience for him, L'Enfant said.

"St. Paul was a frontier city with limited interest in art," she said. "He signed his name in the sketch book as 'Anthony J. Gag' in an attempt to anglosize his name."

Then he moved to New Ulm, and it was here that he began an association with the Schell family, she said.

"He was quite a musician and was quite popular. In addition to being a portrait artist, he became a professional photographer," L'Enfant recounted. "He married Elizabeth Biebl, and the Gags built the house on N. Washington Street that is well known today."

To make ends meet, she said, Gag went into house decoration and also did scenery for plays. However, in 1908, at the age of 40, he died of tuberculosis.

The death of their father was devastating to both Wanda and Flavia, L'Enfant said.

"Wanda, however, managed to go to art school in St. Paul in 1913, and she graduated in 1917," she said. "Then she went to New York to pursue her dream. Wanda's diary showed an impatience with the city, and she hated commercial work."

However, her art became more recognized.

"As lithograph prints were coming on the scene, Wanda quickly became one of the most admired print makers of her generation," the author said. "Her brother Howard and Flavia helped work on Wanda's children's books as all but one of her siblings had moved east. At Wanda's insistence, Flavia began illustrating children's books."

Flavia was devastated when Wanda died in 1946, but she moved out into her own with children's books, L'Enfant said. Flavia moved to Florida in 1958 and died in 1978.

"What is the Gag legacy? It was two things, the German-Bohemian tradition of love of art, life filled with art and music, the love of nature and family, and Anton became a versatile 'jobbing' artist," she concluded.