Mary Francis Burns, At 99, Exhibits In Guild Hall 'Artist Members Exhibit'

Mary Francis Burns has had an eventful month so far.

On Sunday, May 13, she turned 99. And eight days earlier, the eldest participant in the 74th annual “Artist Members Exhibition” at Guild Hall in East Hampton found herself standing next to her watercolor painting “California,” hanging in the gallery. The exhibit features more than 400 artists—and Ms. Burns is a new face in the mix.

“Oh, I was very excited, very happy,” she said at her home in East Hampton, her best friend and housemate Marion Sanger—whom she affectionately calls “Nunnie”—sitting across from her. “I walked over there and I took the steel thing”—she cast a disdainful glance at her walker—“and I planted it down right at the spot. Somebody said, ‘Your painting is the first one. I knew it right away.’ You couldn’t miss it. It was right at the opening door! The first one, I couldn’t believe it.”

She burst into girlish giggles as Ms. Sanger said, “She was in shock, with everything that happened.”

“I’ve just had so many wonderful things happen,” Ms. Burns said. “I was very fortunate.”

From the time she was a small child growing up in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Ms. Burns said she knew she was destined to do something unusual with her life, all because of her mother, and inspiration, Hazel Brauns.

“She wanted my father to build a playhouse for me. This was when I was a little kid,” Ms. Burns recalled, holding her hand about three feet above the floor. “He had too much to do and this went on. So my mother said, ‘Then I’m going to build one for her.’”

Ms. Brauns made a sketch, which she had never done before, and hired a crew to build her vision, her daughter explained.

“It was the most beautiful, charming house that I could ever dream,” Ms. Burns said. “That kind of started me. My mother could design and build a house, I have to do something in this.”

She started simple—drawing with crayons and painting with watercolors—but her love for art truly blossomed at the Fort Wayne Art Institute in Indiana.

“It’s about the idea, when it comes through your mind and when you start to paint this big, white sheet of paper,” she said. “In art school, they tried to switch me over to oil and I didn’t care for it. I didn’t like the smell of it,” she laughed.

By the 1950s, she had left the Midwest behind and headed for Manhattan. There she met Ms. Sanger and became vice president and art director of the American Crayon Company.

Ms. Burns said she loved all of the city’s districts, which were drastically different from one another at the time.

“It was really made for her: New York,” Ms. Sanger commented.

Ms. Burns’s studio overlooked the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center, and she would often lace up her skates after a day of designing and painting.

“My friend said, ‘Wow, you really have it big!’” Ms. Burns recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, it is a piece of good luck.’ That was a marvelous place. When I got a little older, and richer, I bought a car and moved to Brooklyn Heights for a while. So I decided to drive into New York across the Brooklyn Bridge. By the way, I have a painting of the Brooklyn Bridge.”

She laughed quietly, as if amused by her past. “That’s crazy, just really crazy,” she said, and then cracked herself up. “Oh, dear, I forget where I was. See, my head. Well, my apartment was right on the Promenade, where you could walk. It was like being in the country.”

But by 1973, the two women had had enough of the bright lights and city bustle. They retreated to East Hampton, where they’ve lived ever since.

“We liked the whole idea of it, the woods. That’s where we wanted to live,” Ms. Sanger said. “And that’s where we ended up. We never had any desire to change. Fran says constantly she never wants to leave this house.”

“It reminded me a great deal of the place where I was born,” Ms. Burns said. “Here, it’s of course older and more sophisticated. My town was up on a high plateau, the whole town was up like this,” she raised her hand above her head. “It was very picturesque, and this reminded me very much of that beginning, which seems so long ago. It’s been very long ago now.”

She erupted into giggles again, and toyed with a pink flower clipped into her wispy blonde hair.

“Ninety-nine,” she mused, collecting herself. “You know, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it! I’ve gotta get rid of that thing,” she said, shooting one last look at her walker.

The 74th annual “Artists Members Show” will remain on view at Guild Hall in East Hampton through Saturday, June 9. Assistant Curator Michelle Klein will interview winning entrants during a tour of the exhibition on Saturday, May 19, at noon. Museum hours are Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. There is a suggested admission of $7, or free for members. For more information, call 324-0806 or visit guildhall.org.