Charles Percy Austin's "La Buenaventura" or The Martha Austin / Eustalia Soto Painting Mystery

La Buenaventura, c. 1927 Charles Percy Austin (American, 1883-1948) Oil on canvas; 34 x 36 in. 32195a Gift of Mr. Ralph J. Steven

Hanging in the California Paintings Hall of the Bowers Museum is a rather striking painting titled La Buenaventura, or The Good Fortune. What might be standard fare, an early 20th century genre painting carried out by a moderately well-known representative of California’s Plein Air movement, instead reveals significant pause when viewed from up close. The painting depicts a woman in traditional Hispanic dress with tarot cards laid out before her. Though the cards predict a fortuitous future, the woman’s appearance is mysterious and foreboding; her cold blue dress at odds with the warm, bright Southern California setting surrounding her. Charles Percy Austin managed quite successfully, if not lovingly, to capture the essence of a complex figure. But who is she? Just who has he captured? It is not a question that can be answered with ease, and so this is the story of the enigmatic woman of La Buenaventura, whoever she may be.



Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar, 1920’s Charles Percy Austin (American, 1883-1948) Oil on canvas

The trouble is this: according to documents at Bowers Museum, the woman depicted is Martha Austin, the wife of Charles Percy Austin; and according to folks involved at Mission San Juan Capistrano it is Eustalia Soto. When La Buenaventura was gifted to the museum by R. J. Steven, brother-in-law of Martha Austin by way of her sister Maria, he assured us that Martha had posed for the painting. Usually a first person account by a relative is enough to determine a painting’s model. However, San Juan Capistrano Mission received a very similar painting currently titled Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar. The Mission’s painting evidently shares the subject of La Buenaventura; something we can determine from the bracelets on the woman’s arms as well as the dress, which Charles Percy Austin most likely forwent painting the floral pattern on in Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar. According to the label at the Mission the woman is Eustalia Soto, a native Californian who had grown up on a farm near the Mission, and had become a docent at an early age. Charles Percy Austin spent a good deal of time at the Mission, both with and without his wife, so before jumping to conclusions we should take a look at what is known about the characters involved.


Martha Austin, 1920’s Cropped Photograph 32255.5 Gift of Mr. Ralph J. Steven

Charles Percy Austin was born in Colorado on March 23, 1883 to an attorney expecting to raise another generation of attorneys. However Charles took an interest in art at a young age and began studying at the Denver School of Art as soon as he could. From there his studies took him to New York and later all over Europe where he absorbed impressionist and figurative influences. Seeking a place to begin painting after completing his course work, and perhaps worn down by a few too many Parisian winters, Austin headed back to the United States, homing in on comfortably warm southern California. Los Angeles wasn’t just a land of ideal weather; in 1908 when Charles Percy Austin arrived it was a growing artist colony, one where he fit right in. After living in Los Angeles for a few years he visited Mission San Juan Capistrano and at heart never really left. He spent much of the rest of his life painting the Mission and the local faces, and went on to earn more money than anyone in his family, much to his father’s chagrin. Unfortunately, despite being fairly well known in Southern California at the time, Charles Percy Austin is not a particularly popular painter. Most pertinently, while in the past twenty or so years there has been a push to digitize old documents, no one has made a point to digitize and publish the personal documents of Charles Percy Austin. Most of what we know about his personal life comes from the notes his brother-in-law wrote about him.

La Champagne, the French Line ship turned passenger ship which took Martha Bannwart and her family across the Atlantic in 1893

There is an equal lack of information about his wife. We do know that she was born Marthe Bannwart in a small town named Belfort in the Alsace-Lorraine in 1890. She and her family took their one-way transatlantic voyage to the United States in 1893 aboard the passenger ship La Champagne and entered through Ellis Island.


Martha Austin and Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (1922)

Marthe, who by now went by Martha, lived with her family in Swissvale, Pennsylvania until 1918 when she moved out California-way. Four years later she married Charles Percy Austin in the courtyard of Mission San Juan Capistrano. She was known for being a fantastic dancer. In the early 20’s she danced at Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater, one of Los Angeles’s biggest venues at the time. Her biggest role though, according to Mrs. Alice Austin Reilley, Charles Percy Austin’s sister, was a role she landed in the 1922 film Blood and Sand. She plays a sultry temptress who dances alongside Rudolph Valentino. In keeping with the times Valentino throws her to the ground after she leans in for a kiss. Dated objectification of women be damned, the film was the third highest grossing that year. Although Mrs. Austin was not credited, the images to the right and below demonstrate that she was, beyond doubt, the nameless actress.

Martha and Charles Percy Austin, 1920’s Cropped Photograph 32255.3 Gift of Mr. Ralph J. Steven

More topically relevant though, she danced at San Juan Capistrano’s 1925 Mission Pageant. A New York Times article dating back to 1925 refers to “Her Role of Spanish Dancer in ‘The Mission Pageant of San Juan Capistrano,’ at That Famous Mission in California, With a Spanish Shawl as a Background, Centuries Old and Worth Hundreds of Dollars” (New York Times). The shawl currently resides in Bowers permanent collection. It is wonderful to have the item, just as it is excellent to be able to see that Martha Austin did actually dance in Blood and Sand; it lends legitimacy to stories which can so easily get carried away or exaggerated over the years. 

Photograph of Eustalia Soto Dec. 25th, 1930

Discerning what happened in the life of Eustalia Soto is much more difficult. Sadly there were no word processed notes from family members to reveal her true story.  According to census records she was born in 1912, the daughter of Latino farmers who had come to California from Texas near the end of the 19th century. Her relatives, still heavily involved with Mission San Juan Capistrano to this day, tell us she was well known at the Mission where she worked as a docent. Eustalia Soto was purported to be quite the musician, and would serenade visitors with smooth guitar stylings and dulcet vocals. If this is the case she certainly she meets the instrumental requirement for being the woman depicted in Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar. The most fascinating thing about the woman though is her disappearance. Shortly after the above photograph of Eustalia Soto was taken, dated December 25, 1930, she went missing and was never seen again. Her family still does what it can to keep her memory alive, but it’s hard when not much of a person remains except perhaps the slim chance that she was captured in oil on canvas. So let’s summarize what we know. The paintings were done between 1922 and 1930. Unfortunately the exact dates on both paintings are unknown. In 1922 Martha Austin would have been 32 years old, and Eustalia Soto would have been 10 years old; in 1930 Martha Austin would have been 40 and Eustalia Soto would have been 18. Because of the wide window in which they could have been painted it’s impossible to rule out either woman. Both women looked the part, and Charles Percy Austin would have been familiar enough with both women to paint them. Unsure who the painting depicted it seemed quite logical that it would be Eustalia. The title Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar is rather conclusive with Martha having hailed from Germany. Here is the bombshell though: hidden deep within the old accession files was an article from 1948 which clearly shows Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar, underneath though is the following caption, “’Martita at San Juan’ is a portrait of Mrs. Austin as a bride, when for a time they lived at the mission while Austin was painting there. Martita is the Spanish diminutive for Martha, which is Mrs. Austin’s name”(Cook).



Martita at San Juan, in the Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, April 15, 1948

Cook, who authored the above quote, wrote the article for a show which took place during C.P. Austin’s life, and she was certain that the painting was titled Martita at San Juan. Alma May Cook was a well-respected Los Angeles area journalist and the only reason to think she was mistaken is that the painting is titled differently at the Mission. However, thanks to the helpful folks at Mission San Juan Capistrano, it was disclosed that the title was assigned many years ago when there were no accessible documents, or surviving Austin relatives who would have known the painting first-hand.
 In light of this final evidence it seems we are left with a fairly definitive answer then about the subject of the paintings. It can confidently be said it is Charles Percy Austin’s wife who he captured so adoringly in Martita at San Juan and with such depth in La Buenaventura. If you’re still not convinced, or want to see the wonderful paintings as they were meant to be seen, come and visit the Bowers Museum’s California Paintings exhibition to take a look at La Buenaventura, and then stop by Mission San Juan Capistrano’s Mission Treasures: Historical Collection Revealed exhibition and take a look at Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar. Bibliography: Cook, Alma May. "C.P. Austin Art to Be Exhibited." Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, April 15, 1948. IMDb. "Blood and Sand." Accessed November 5, 2015. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012952/. Lawrence Beebe. "Charles Percy Austin." 2006. Accessed November 3, 2015. http://www.lawrencebeebe.com/artistsbiographies/charlespercyaustinbiography.html. New York Times. "The Mission Pageant of San Juan Capistrano (Pictorial)." June 5, 1925. Riley, Alice Austin. Regarding C.P. Austin and his wife…. Letter. San Juan Capistrano Mission. Museum label for C.P. Austin’s, Spanish Lady Playing the Guitar. San Juan Capistrano, CA. Steven, R.J.. Letter to Merton E. Hinshaw, March 31, 1964. Letter. Who's Who on the Pacific Coast. Chicago: Larkin, Roosevelt & Larkin, 1947.
Images are taken courtesy of ocstories.com, libertyellisfoundation.org, and Mission San Juan Capistrano.
 
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