Louise
Heron Blair Daura
By Michelle Strizever, '03
The Bryn Mawr Library recently acquired the papers of Louise Heron Blair Daura, a 1927 graduate of Bryn Mawr, an artist, and wife of Catalan painter Pierre Daura. The collection includes letters to Louise from her time at Bryn Mawr, from 1924-7, as well as letters written to her from family and friends while she traveled in Europe during the 1920s. There are also a series of letters that she wrote to her family while living in Saint Cirq-la-Popie, a small French town, with her husband. The letters give rich descriptions of the life of an American living in Europe before and during the Spanish Civil War. The collection also contains Louise's essays and other writings from Bryn Mawr, giving a sense of what Bryn Mawr was like in the mid-1920s.
One of Louise's humorous Bryn Mawr writings is a pamphlet called "Idea
of a College." In it, she describes an alternative Bryn Mawr: "In
this ideal college, there should be four classes of society, corresponding to
the four college years. The Freshmen should be the serfs, the Sophomores the
lower classes, the Juniors the middle classes, and the Seniors the aristocracy.
Each Senior should have two serfs, in her own hall, to be chosen each year by
the Seniors."
Louise graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1927, and traveled to Europe. In 1928, she
married Pierre Daura. They lived in Saint Cirq-la-Popie, until the Spanish Civil
War, in a house dated to 1236. There, they painted frescoes on the walls and
landscapes of the countryside. Describing the painting of the frescoes to her
family in 1936, Louise wrote:
"Last week I was in seventh heaven, seated on the cold stone hall, with my head resting on one of the cold wrought iron volutes of the railing. I was watching Pierre as he began the first fresco of our hall. During the rainy winter days he had been working on the cartoons for the frescoes, and now at last he was beginning the execution... Pierre, on an improvised scaffolding of a ladder laid flat, resting in a step and the wrought iron railing, spread on the mortar smoothly, polished it with his trowel, and then tacked over it the cartoon. Then he and I, with small knitting needles as styluses, traced the design on the wet mortar. When the design was traced, Pierre took down the cartoon and began to paint. I took up my vigil on the steps, enraptured."
They had one child, Martha, in 1930. Pierre went to Spain in 1937 to volunteer
with the Republican Army. Louise wrote a series of letters to her family about
going to visit Pierre while he was on leave in Barcelona. These letters vividly
describe the living conditions and damage done to the towns of Spain during
the Spanish Civil War:
"After I had finished writing my letter to you in Port-Bou, I went to see the damage done to the town in the last bombardment. A bridge was blown up, all the windows of the station broken, and the parapet that protects the train from falling into the ravine was shattered all along the line for two miles. I went down to the beach, interested in all the war posters, and the 'Long live Russia' 'Long Live Staline' and 'Down with Mussolini' painted on the walls everywhere."
Pierre was wounded in 1938, and the Dauras moved to Virginia. After the end
of World War II, Louise, Pierre, and Martha spent their time in both Saint Cirq-la-Popie
and Virginia. Louise and Pierre continued to paint. Louise also documented and
researched pre-historic cave art in France. She died in Rockbridge Baths, Virginia,
on November 10, 1972.