A Memorial exhibition for Claude Koch (1918-200), Spring 2002https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/exhibition_catalogues/1095/thumbnail.jp

Burke, Brother Daniel, FSC

La Salle University Art Museum

English

La Salle University Digital Commons

La Salle UniversityLa Salle University Digital CommonsArt Museum Exhibition Catalogues La Salle University Art MuseumSpring 2002Claude's EnglandLa Salle University Art MuseumBrother Daniel Burke FSCFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/exhibition_cataloguesPart of the Fine Arts Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and ArchaeologyCommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by the La Salle University Art Museum at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Art Museum Exhibition Catalogues by an authorized administrator of La Salle University Digital Commons. For moreinformation, please contact careyc@lasalle.edu.Recommended CitationLa Salle University Art Museum and Burke, Brother Daniel FSC, "Claude's England" (2002). Art Museum Exhibition Catalogues. 17.http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/exhibition_catalogues/17CLAUDE ’ S ENGLANDA Memorial ExhibitionLa Salle University Art Museum Spring, 2002Frontispiece: Pencil sketch o f Claude by James Hanes, La Salle Art Department, c. 1980CLAUDE ’ S ENGLANDA Memorial ExhibitionLa Salle University Art Museum Spring, 2002Frontispiece: Pencil sketch o f Claude by James Hanes, La Salle Art Department, c. 1980Claude, Teacher and WriterClaude Francis Koch was bom to Claude and Madeline Koch on November 28,1918 in the Philadelphia neighborhood known as Wayne Junc­tion. He attended parochial school, Northeast Catholic High School, and La Salle College. He was graduated from La Salle with a degree in ac­counting in 1940 and began graduate studies in English at Niagara University. He married Mary Kane in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific until his discharge with the rank of Major in 1946.He and his wife lived thereafter in a small town in Vermont, working in a country store and writing until he was offered a position at his alma mater, La Salle. He returned to Philadelphia, re­sumed graduate work at the University of Pennsyl­vania, and began a teaching career in the English Department at La Salle that spanned the next 45 years. He earned an M.A. in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Florida, where he studied under Andrew Lytle.His poetry appeared at regular intervals in Spirit, the magazine published by the Catholic Po­etry Society, and he began work on his first novel, Island Interlude, which was awarded the Dodd Mead Intercollegiate Literary Fellowship in 1949. This was the first of several awards made to Kochand his work, including a Sewanee Review Fel­lowship in Fiction (1957) and a Rockefeller Foun­dation Fellowship (1966). Koch’s teaching of writing and literature earned him a Lindbach Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1968.He continued to publish poems in Four Quarters, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, and other literary magazines. His short stories ap­peared in these three magazines as well as in Antioch Review, Ave Maria, Delta Review, North­west Review, and elsewhere. Several of his stories were cited in the lists of “Distinctive” or “Distinguished” stories in volumes of Best Ameri­can Short Stories and some later appeared in an­thologies.His later four novels were Island Interlude (Dodd, Mead, 1951), Light in Silence ( (Dodd Mead, 1958) The Kite in the Sea (Chilton, 1964), and A Casual Company (Chilton, 1965), The Kite in the Sea was also published by Scholastic Books in a paperback edition in 1975. Victor Gollancz published a British edition of Light in Silence in London in 1959.In the 1970s, Koch turned his talents to drama and wrote Unhurrying Chase, Mother, and Alba, a verse play. The plays were produced at the University of Toledo, the Philadelphia Drama Guild, and Hillsdale College.Claude retired from La Salle in 1989 and was named Emeritus Professor of English. He was nursed in his final illness by Mary and there six grown children at his home in Chestnut Hill. He died on December 2,2000.—John KeenanClaude, BibliophileClaude was teaching a full schedule of English courses and working on his third novel when he made his first trip to England with his wife, Mary. It was in the early 60s, and the occa­sion was rather a happenstance. It began with a call from Dan Rodden, Claude’s colleague in the English department and director of La Salle dra­mas. Dan was arranging his first trip to London for his undergraduate thespians and belatedly real­ized that he would need a few chaperons. So he called on Claude and his wife Mary, who, after some hurried re-arrangements of their schedules, agreed to go during the mid-year break.There were several such trips in the years that followed, and the Kochs got to know England and the English. There were the theatres (memorable occasions, as when they were advised, with other ticket holders, to come in boots and heavy overcoats, since a strike had shut the heating system); the pubs (with their special codes of din­ing and conversation); underground transport (soefficient and sensible, though with one evacuation, after a terroist threat); the great museums; forays into the country shires; and then, the marvelous book shops of Camdentown and Bloomsbury (with beautiful books for the Koch children). They never did get to Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, rea­soning at the end of each trip that they would have to come back the next year to see it.A bit later, back in Philadelphia, they got to know one Tom McCauley, a La Salle alum, who like Claude was a Marine veteran. He was also a veteran of Claude’s Shakespeare course, a convert to the English major, an English teacher himself later and, eventually, a fervent book-collector. As books accumulated in the McCauley household, however, Tom finally decided to open a summer bookstall in New Hope. In a few years, he had convinced his wife Rita that with her managerial skills, the children’s help, and his extensive con­tacts with book dealers, they should go into the book-fair business. And they did.Needless to say, the Kochs were invited to the first show. They were delighted with the no­tion that dozens of book-dealers would be in one place, exhibiting their best stock. It was not a big step then, as they looked forward to retirement, to convince the Kochs that they, too, should have a book-stall, one very near the main entrance to the fair and stocked with choice items from London dealers. So it happened that on English trips therewould be a collapsed canvas suitcase or two in the Koch baggage. A few weeks later, those would be tightly packed and conveniently handled by British Airways on a flight back to Philadelphia.The book-fairs were gratifying occasions for Claude in his retirement, especially as he spent a good bit of his time exploring the treasures of the other dealers. But he was busy, too, with some writing and organizing earlier material. Sadly, the days were soon clouded by his protracted final ill­ness. My own blest memory, early in the last years, was of an evening with the Kochs and some other friends. We had gathered for a dinner, which was supported, indirectly, by a check I had recently received from the national office of the Catholic Bishops for work done for the New American Bi­ble—with occasional consultation by Claude. As the evening progressed, it was punctuated several times with Claude raising his glass convivially— and to our merriment—as he exclaimed “God bless the Bishops!” May there be blessings, too, for all engaging writers, informed bibliophiles, and hon­est dealers.—Brother Daniel BurkeExhibition Check ListThe exhibition includes the seven prints purchased with memorial funds donated to the La Salle Museum by Claude’s family and friends. Most of the exhibits are English scenes. We hope the others reflect Claude’s artistic spirit and inter­ests.1. Bo Bartlett (b. 1955--), American Claude Koch, 1989(Preparatory sketch for triptych painting Exodus)Pencil2. Earle Hotter (1881-1940), American R. Wilson BooksAcquatintPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude Koch3. H. E. Hampshire (20th Century), English or AmericanEnglish Cloister Etching and drypoint4. William Wood Deane (1825-1875), English St. Paul’s Cathedral from Across the Thames River, LondonWatercolor5. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), English Queen Anne’s Gate, London, 1899 Etching6. Earle Horter (1881-1940), American UntitledEtchingPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude Koch7. Herbert M. Marshall (1841-1915), English Street Scene near Westminster Abbey, London Watercolor8. Charlotte M. Halliday (Contemporary), English The Knights o f St. John Tavern, 1976 Watercolor and gouache9. David Young Cameron (1863-1945), English Interior o f St. Mark’s Venice, 1895 Etching and drypointPurchased with funds donated by the La Salle College Guild10. Percival Gaskell (1868-1934), English Fountains Abbey(?) RuinsEtching and drypoint11. Edward Dayes (1769-1804), English Norwich CathedralWatercolor12. Albert Winslow Barker (1874-1947), American So September Ends, c.1925LithographPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude Koch13. Albert Winslow Barker (1874-1947), American Deep HollowLithographPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude Koch14. John Varley (1778-1842), English River Landscape with Castle WatercolorGiven by John and Molly Reilly15. Odilon Redon (1840-1916), French Edouard Vuillard, 1900 LithographPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude Koch16. Frederick Carter (1855-1967), English Augustus John and William Nicholson at the Cafe Royal, c.1920EtchingPurchased: The Marjorie M. and Irwin Nat Pincus Fund for Prints, Drawings and Watercolors.17. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), English A Venetian Convent, 1895EtchingPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude F. Koch18. David Young Cameron (1805-1945), English Gloucester Cathedral, 1931Etching with drypoint19. George Cattermole (1800-1868), BritishA Venetian Scene (Possibly an illustration from Shakespeare’s Othello)Watercolor20. Hedley Fitton (1859-1929), English Doorway o f Santa Zuccaria, Venice EtchingPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude F. KochOutside Hall Case21. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), English House Doorway, Ypres, 1930Etching17. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), English A Venetian Convent, 1895EtchingPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude F. Koch18. David Young Cameron (1805-1945), English Gloucester Cathedral, 1931Etching with drypoint19. George Cattermole (1800-1868), BritishA Venetian Scene (Possibly an illustration from Shakespeare’s Othello)Watercolor20. Hedley Fitton (1859-1929), English Doorway o f Santa Zuccaria, Venice EtchingPurchased with funds donated in memory of Claude F. KochOutside Hall Case21. David Young Cameron (1865-1945), English House Doorway, Ypres, 1930Etching

Claude\u27s England

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Claude\u27s England

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