ANNA  KEENER
  (1895-1982)

   Anna Elizabeth Keener (Mrs. Louis Raymond Wilton) was recognized as a painter, graphic artist, teacher and writer. She was born in Flagler, Colorado and grew up in Dalhart, Texas.  She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1916, and a Master of Arts degree in 1918, at Bethany College, in Lindsborg, Kansas, while attending summer session at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois in 1917 and 1919.  While at Bethany College, Kenner was a student of and assistant to Birger Sandzen, a professor of printing and painting and a painter of recognition, who she credited as one of her best teachers.  She also studied with etchers Paulus and Bertha Jacques and the lithographer, Joseph Imhoff.

    Anna Keener served as a clerk in the US Navy during World War I, in Detroit, while taking night course at the Detroit School of Design. .  After the War she taught public school in Arizona and Kansas.  She attended the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri in 1923.  In 1925 she taught drawing at Sul Ross State Teachers College, in Alpine, Texas.  Then she moved to New Mexico where she taught art in Red River, Ojo Caliente, Las Vegas, and Gallup.  Keener painted the mural in the Mckinley County Courthouse in Gallup, NM.

   Keener studied in Mexico City in 1941, and in 1942 she began a twelve year commitment to teaching and became the head the art department at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales.  During that time she received a Master of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 

    In 1954 Anna Keener retired from Eastern New Mexico University and Moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she continued to paint and write.  She was author of, SPONTANEITY IN DESIGN (Kansas City: Missouri Valley Press, 1923). In 1962 she returned to school studying at the California Collage of Arts and Crafts.  She died at her home in Santa Fe at the age of 87.