Dorothy Quest

Artist couples are not that unusual, but Dorothy Johnson Quest and Charles Quest were a special case. The pair eloped in 1929 when Dorothy was twenty and the marriage lasted for sixty-four years, a remarkable success at the time. Although they both taught, they benefited from having different specialties: she was primarily a portraitist and he concentrated on abstract prints. Both were members of the municipal opera outdoor-theater dancing chorus, and they occasionally collaborated on murals.

Dorothy Davenport Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and attended Soldan High School which was well equipped for art instruction with its three mechanical drafting rooms and four classrooms with skylights. When she finished high school and married, she and Charles went to France for further study. They did not prolong their stay as finances became limited following the stock market crash. Upon their return home to St. Louis, she began studies at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University (now the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts) and completed her degree in 1933. She started painting portraits of notable local figures—both living and historical from photographs and other sources—and over time accomplished more than five hundred. She also taught art at the following institutions: Community School in nearby Clayton (1936–1938); the Sacred Heart Academy in St. Louis (1939–1941); and Maryville College (1945), where she served as department chair. During the summer of 1937 she was in New York studying at Columbia University.

For the mural commissions she and her husband undertook, they traveled to Spain in 1960 to view Diego Velasquez's Christ Crucified at The Prado Museum. They made a fourteen-foot replica for the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, the first cathedral west of the Mississippi. Her task was to grind pigments and mix them with eggs and mica which reflected candlelight. Charles applied the paint.

In 1971 (some sources say 1969) the Quests moved to Tryon, North Carolina, which had emerged in the 1920s as an art colony with the arrival of such noted painters as George Aid, Lawrence Mazzanovich, Homer Ellertson, and Amelia Watson. Quest continued to paint portraits, including a double of Arthur and Elizabeth Farwell for the Lanier Library. She taught portrait technique at the Tryon Fine Arts Center, and for twelve years she led the "slimnastics" aerobics class at the Congregational Church. Both Dorothy and Charles Quest enjoyed long and productive lives in the arts; looking back on her career, it was clear that Dorothy Quest spent her life dedicated to producing and sharing art in the South.