Anita Coffin Dammin, Nurse Who Had Passion For Art, 84
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A Natucket, Massachusetts, native, Anita Dammin died April 7, 2005, at
Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where she had been suffering from
Parkinson's disease for the past three years, at the age of 84.
Anita June Coffin Dammin began a career as a nurse in the 1930s because
it was the thing to do in those days. She later pursued her dreams and
became a prominent artist who helped bring modern art to the Boston,
Massachusetts, area.
A printmaker with a passion for modern art, she provided a showcase for
aspiring artists by placing their works in business offices. She was
perhaps equally passionate about the environment and worked to preserve
local forests and hiking trails.
"As a printmaker, she was one of the most inventive women working on
the island at a time when not too much was being done in the way of
printmaking," said Reggie Levine, director of the former Main Street
Gallery on Nantucket. "She was a powerful voice in the art community --
really defended the idea of creativity and how it important it was. She
was one of my favorites as a person and as an artist."
Known as June, Mrs. Dammin was raised on Nantucket Island. When she was
a child, she and her two brothers delighted in sailing their family
catboat, visiting their grandmother's farmhouse, and spending time at
their family's guesthouse, known as The Coffin House.
Interested in art at an early age, she spent her summers as an
adolescent assisting Ernest Hemingway's mother, Grace, an artist who
roomed at the guest house.
After graduating from Nantucket High School, she was admitted to
Wellesley College, but opted to train in nursing at Simmons College and
Children's Hospital, School of Nursing in Boston. She graduated in the
late 1930s, with a certificate in phlebotomy. While in school, she met
Gustave John Dammin, whom she married in July 1941.
Although her interest lay in the arts, Mrs. Dammin pursued nursing
because "it was the thing to do in those days," said her daughter,
Susan Coffin Dammin Stone of Nantucket. ''She did it because she wanted
to be educated."
During World War II, she traveled to Puerto Rico, joined the American
Red Cross, and ran a plasma bank for the Army. After Mrs. Dammin became
pregnant with her first child, she and her husband moved to Baltimore,
Maryland, and St. Louis, Missouri, before settling in Weston,
Massachusetts, in the early 1950s. There, she actively pursued her
dream to become an artist and began studying modern art and printmaking
at Brandeis University, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and
Radcliffe College.
"I don't know where she got the modern art bug," said her daughter.
"Maybe it was being apart of the excitement of how things were
beginning to change in the art world."
Mrs. Dammin was influenced by the abstract and expressionist works of
Picasso and Jackson Pollock, and her art ran the gamut from realistic
to abstract, said Levine, who owns 10 of her pieces in his private
collection. She worked primarily in printmaking but dabbled with oils
and watercolor.
She contributed to shows at the Copley Society, the Cambridge
[Massachusetts] Art Association, the Kenneth Taylor Gallery, the Little
Gallery, the Addison Gallery, and was one of the first artists to be
featured at the former Main Street Gallery after it opened in 1970.
Throughout her career, she produced more than 100 pieces of individual
art.
"Freedom is what drew her to the arts," Levine said.
In the early 1960s, she helped promote the works of aspiring artists
through Art for Industry, a company founded by Ruth Carmichael. The
business placed artwork from new modern artists in executive offices in
Boston on a rotating basis, so there would always be "a moveable feast
of art," said her daughter.
Mrs. Dammin not only enjoyed producing art, but also thought others
should experience it. She worked for 10 years as head administrator for
the Artists' Association of Nantucket and was instrumental in the
organization of the Nantucket Printmakers Society.
She also taught printmaking for 17 years as volunteer at Weston High
School.
Almost equal to her zeal for the arts was Mrs. Dammin's desire to
preserve the beauty of the environment.
While living in Weston, she became involved in the conservation of the
Weston hiking trails and forests. She was a founding member of the
Weston Town Forests.
"She was someone who had a great zest for everything she did," said her
daughter.
"She was an accomplished artist. Her life imitated her art -- very
poetic and using the whole spectrum of colors."
In addition to her daughter Susan, Mrs. Dammin leaves another daughter,
Abigail Coffin Murphy of Siasconset, on Nantucket, Massachusetts; a
son, Tristram of Boston, Massachusetts; and four grandchildren.
Boston GLobe
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