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After Audrey graduated from The Kinkaid School in 1939, she enrolled
at Mount Vernon College near Washington, D.C., and spent many evenings
and weekends with her grandparents at their Shoreham Hotel apartment
and sometimes at the White House when her grandparents visited the
Roosevelts. In 1940, Audrey transferred to The University of Texas
and one year later met Ensign John Beck at Corpus Christi’s
Naval Air Base during the opening of the Officers’ Club. Eight
months later, they had the first military wedding at Christ Church
Cathedral in Houston. As a war bride, Mrs. Beck followed her husband
from assignment to assignment, and once he was released from service,
the couple made their home in Houston. Mr. Beck developed a booming
business selling and leasing heavy construction equipment, and Mrs.
Beck began studying and collecting Impressionist and Post-impressionist
art.
In the most recent catalogue of her collection, Mrs. Beck wrote, “My
romance with Impressionism began when I first visited Europe at the
age of 16 as a student tourist, complete with camera to record my
trip. I paid homage to the ‘Mona Lisa’ and the ‘Venus
de Milo,’ but the imaginative and colorful Impressionist paintings
came as a total surprise. Works by these avant-garde artists, who
had rebelled against the academic tradition of the day, were scarce
in American museums at the time. For me, they were not only the epitome
of artistic freedom, but a visual delight. I returned home with many
pictures, but none taken with the camera. My images were museum reproductions.” |
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