New Exhibit: Carol Cade Children's Art, Part One

Introduction

The Carol Cade Children’s Art Collection comprises 532 mostly drawings and paintings, with some mixed media, created by young artists whose work was collected over decades by Carol Beth Cade, an avid teacher and painter from the South. Children of varying ages made them in family or neighborhood groups. College students asked them to draw pictures of themselves, something they enjoyed, or something they would like to do when they are older.

Cade’s collection presents a charming, comprehensive view of the artistic development of children, one that illustrates key stages of their artistic growth, from Scribbling and Pre-Schematic, to Schematic and Early Realism, through to Pseudo Naturalistic and Decision.  In coordination with the Program in Art and Art Education, it was gifted to the Milbank Memorial Library (now Gottesman Libraries) of Teachers College, Columbia University in the early 1990s, building upon children’s art collections as a unique resource in the study and teaching of art. 

Portions of the Carol Cade Children’s Art Collection were first shown at Pace University in 1991. Summaries of the artistic stages are drawn from Cade’s own narrative descriptions which include recommended classroom art materials for each stage of development. Cade’s curation lends interesting historical insight into her doctoral research at Teachers College and how the program in Art and Art Education would evolve innovatively in the following decades, with an examination of the role of the senses, emotions, and intellect in artistic development, and of the layered integrations they form over time, and with critical starting points for research.

This exhibit will be shown in three parts throughout the Fall of 2025.

On Carol Cade

Daughter to Reverend Charles David Cade and his wife Hope Tabor, Carol Beth Cade was born on February 22,1927 in the small town of Okolona near the western edge of Clark County, Arkansas. She spent much of her life in the greater Memphis, Arkansas area. She came to Teachers College in the late 1960s to undertake graduate research and completed her Ed’D  in 1973 under advisement by Justin Schorr and William J. Mahoney with the dissertation, Color in Color Field Painting : Color in the Painting of Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella. In the early 1980s, Carol Cade served as Secretary for the Board for the University Council of Art Education at City University of New York.

She contributed a chapter, “A Minister’s Daughter Remembers” to Crisis of Conscience: Arkansas Methodists and the Civil Rights Struggle (Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2007), featuring personal stories by thirty Arkansas Methodist pastors, laypersons, and community leaders who lived through the struggles for civil rights in the 1950s. A former resident of Asbury Methodist Village, she recounts her father’s deep involvement, as well as her own awakening to racial attitudes and prejudices. New York, with its rich diversity in both art and education, was home to Cade who lived in Manhattan until her death at the age of 93.

On Scribbling and Pre-Schematic Drawings

Part One of The Artistic Development of Children: Select Works from the Carol Cade Children’s Art Collection focuses on the Scribbling and Pre-Schematic stages. From the age of two, children begin to take an interest in making marks (or “scribbles”), if paper and a marker, pencil, or pen are available  – setting the stage for reading and writing. Then follows the naming of the marks, a way for children to document their experiences – even if their pictures do not bear actual resemblances to the portrayed person or object. In the Scribbling stage, plain unprinted paper and dark crayons are good, and, with mastery, can lead to the use of large crayons or thick tempera paint on white or light colored paper. 

In the Pre-Schematic Stage, typically between 4-7 years of age, children begin to draw recognizable shapes, like human figures, pets, or toys. Not arranged in relationship to each other, the objects tend to “float” about on the page, while crayon colors usually are chosen for their appeal or convenience, rather than to match what they actually see. Subjects relate closely to the self – the child’s own body or home. The child’s way of representing people or images may change in his / her search for expression.

In addition to crayons, suitable materials include: paint, clay, and collage where they can use safe, all-purpose glue, masking tape, or a stapler; colored paper, yarn, fabric scraps, and/or buttons; and also cardboard, paper boxes, spools, straws, and packing materials. Construction with these materials can help children understand balance and the relationship between form and size, while allowing them to be creative with what’s around them.

In these pictures, we get a glimpse of the senses, emotions, and intellect in the early artistic development of children 3-5 years of age; during the pre-school years they are becoming more independent and curious – developing necessary skills for their skills for social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth: growth and motor skills; language, problem solving, concept formation, and imaginative play; social awareness, friendship, emotional regulation and independence.

References

Brief Life History of Carol Elizabeth Cade. Family Search. Retrieved from: https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LKZM-NZS/carol-elizabeth-cade-1927-2020.

Cade, Carol Beth. Color in Color Field Painting : Color in the Painting of Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1973. Closed Stacks Dissertations  ND1489 .C33 1973.

Cade, Carol Beth. Signage: Movement [New York: Pace University, 1991]. Retrieved from: https://teacherscollege.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01TCCU_INST/939ve0/alma991006712413306971.

Cade, Carol Beth. Signage: Pre-Schematic. [New York: Pace University, 1991]. Retrieved from: https://teacherscollege.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01TCCU_INST/939ve0/alma991006712413206971.

Cade, Carol Beth. Signage: Scribbling. [New York: Pace University, 1991]. Retrieved from: https://teacherscollege.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01TCCU_INST/939ve0/alma991006712413006971.

Carol Cade Children’s Art. Teachers College Digital Collections.

Clemons, James T  and Kelly L. Farr, eds. Crisis of Conscience: Arkansas Methodists and the Civil Rights Struggle. Burke Library E185.93.A8 C75 2007.

John F. Lidstone Collection. Minutes of the Board of the University Council of Art Education at City University of New York.  Teachers College Digital Collections.

We Remember This Day. Bulletin of the St Paul and United Methodist Church. [New York]. November 1, 2020. Retrieved from: https://stpaulandstandrew.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/All-Saints.pdf.

Acknowledgements

The Artistic Development of Children: Select Works from the Carol Cade Children’s Art Collection is made possible through the generous support of the Myers Foundations. It is curated by Jennifer Govan, Library Director and Senior Librarian and designed by Soeun Bae, Library Associate for Art and Design, with assistance from Kai Oh, fellow Associate for Art and Design.

Where: First Floor

When: September 2 - October 13 

Poster Image:  Mark Abstract, from Carol Cade Children's Art, Courtesy of Teachers College, Columbia University.