Houston Legends:
Bayou Bend, symphony founder also championed a wide range of causes
The legacy of Ima Hogg includes the Houston Symphony and much more.
It was 2 a.m., and Alexander “Mike” McLanahan’s phone was ringing. Ima Hogg was calling. “Mr. McLanahan, I’m embarrased to be calling at 2 a.m., but you know how it is, I can never be certain about tomorrow,” said Hogg, who was then in her 80s. “I just want you to know that a John Smibert painting will be coming up at auction next week. It will sell for around $500,000. I will put up $100,000 and, Mr. McLanahan, you will know how to raise the other $400,000. We
must have that Smibert.” He raised it, of course, because that’s what you did when the city’s grand dame called in the 1960s.
The painting is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s permanent collection.
McLanahan, now 90, is a businessman and a Life Trustee of the Houston Symphony Society; he chaired its board from 19972001. He also was on the MFAH board from 1967 to 1986, serving as its president from 1969-1975, the year Hogg died.
He and others describe the legendary woman as an unstoppable force determined to ensure that arts, culture and commerce would be constant companions.
She was the principal founder of the Houston Symphony in 1913, when many Houstonians barely knew what classical music was. Her vast personal collection of early American decorative arts became the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, considered one of the most important home museums in the country.
There were other issues close to her heart: children’s health, mental health, historic preservation and arts education.
In everything she did, she created a blueprint for future philanthropists to follow.
“Houston had the most extraordinary group of women working on behalf of beneficial organizations, more than any city I knew in America,” McLanahan said. “Miss Ima was their leader. She set the pace for all of the others.”
Her history
The tiny town of Mineola’s biggest claim to fame is as the one-time home of former Gov. James Hogg and the birthplace of his legendary daughter, Ima, born in 1882.
James Hogg’s entry into politics as justice of the peace in 1873 propelled him to the governor’s office by 1891. When his wife, Sallie, died in 1895, Ima, just 13, became her father’s sounding board on issues of the day.
After office, James Hogg began acquiring land, including the West Columbia plantation where he raised Ima and her brothers, William, Michael and Thomas — now called the Varner-Hogg Plantation. When he died in 1906, Hogg asked that his children not sell the land for 15 years.
It proved a prophetic request: In 1919, they struck oil.
In letters and in words, their father always conveyed that they should follow the model he and their mother had set: That their every action should improve the lives of others. He wanted them to make him proud.
After earning a degree at the University of Texas, Ima Hogg studied piano in New York and then Germany, returning to Houston in 1909 to teach it.
Music was her first love, but it was far from her only interest. She was elected to the Houston School Board in 1943, helping women and minorities get teaching jobs and improving arts education for all.
She founded the Houston Symphony Orchestra with Julien Paul Blintz, its first conductor, and in its first season, some 36 musicians performed three concerts.
Like the smart businesswoman she was, Hogg recruited 138 “guarantors” who pledged $25 a year and sold season tickets to secure a core audience. The original accounting ledger is a who’s who of the day: the Hirsches, Clevelands, Bakers and Blaffers were all guarantors.
Touring orchestras were hosted here when the symphony went dormant during World War I. A single concert revival was conducted in 1921, but it would be another decade before the symphony fully reorganized.
Today, the Houston Symphony’s 87 musicians perform about 300 concerts a year before more than 300,000 people at Jones Hall and other sites.
About that name
Her name alone can prompt giggles from schoolchildren.
Her father named her Ima after the heroine in a Civil Warera poem written by his brother, Thomas Elisha Hogg.
“Her name was a struggle for her,” said David B. Warren, who arrived in Houston in 1965 as Bayou Bend’s first curator. “Her correspondence was always signed ‘Miss I. Hogg’. Her calling cards were ‘Miss I. Hogg’.”
In Texas, of course, Miss Ima — with or without a last name — is revered. Newcomers who joke about the name are likely to get a lecture about the woman and her many good works.
Less than two weeks before her death, worldly readers were reminded of who she was: “Miss Hogg” — was a clue in the Aug. 10, 1975, New York Times crossword puzzle.
Her passion project
In 1920, Ima Hogg sat for famed New York portrait artist Wayman Adams. She learned that the chair she posed in was a mid-18th century American antique and, soon after, bought one for herself.
As the governor’s daughter, Hogg was surrounded by beautiful paintings and fine furniture. She understood that a painting’s smallest details could speak volumes and that every stick of furniture told a story.
It was that single chair that launched Hogg on the journey that made her an expert in decorative arts and antiquities as she filled her 18-room River Oaks home. Warren, founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend, said collecting quickly became a passion for the woman he described as shy and modest but fearless when pursuing a project.
Hogg’s collection included pieces made or used in America from 1620 to 1876. Dealers in New York knew her — as well as her competition, Henry Francis du Pont, whose own home and collection became the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Warren told a story of their rivalry: “In 1927, a dealer in New York put choice things away for his best clients. Miss Hogg went into the Madison Avenue shop and bought a settee. Well, du Pont came in the next day to see it and was told that it had been sold to people in Texas,” he recalled. “Fast forward to 1956, and Henry du Pont came to Houston. He walked into Miss Hogg’s home, saw it and said, ‘There’s my settee!’
“Mr. du Pont didn’t forget much, but then, neither did Ima,” Warren said.
In fact, it was du Pont who encouraged Hogg to donate her collection, home and all, to one museum — just as he did. She chose the MFAH.
Bayou Bend’s current director, Bonnie Campbell, said each room holds many history lessons. For example, the Murphy Room shows how our earliest homes might have just one armchair, used by the father or a guest. A cupboard full of textiles, stoneware and pewter was a display of wealth.
Continued presence
Bayou Bend and the symphony may be Hogg’s most obvious gifts to Houston, but her legacy is large.
“She is one of the most conspicuous in a very distinguished list of Houston philanthropists,” said Gary Tinterow, director of the MFAH. “Houston is not unusual but is remarkable for the number of philanthropists who emerged in the first half of the 20th century.”
Hogg also demonstrated how to harness the power of volunteers to do great things.
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at UT also cannot be overlooked. Some $1.8 million from Will Hogg’s estate created this tribute with scholarships, mental health clinics, training courses and counseling. Hogg herself experienced depression.
Ginny Garrett, a longtime symphony volunteer and former percussionist, remembered Hogg’s constant presence: “To be involved with her in any project was to be made to feel very special. She was a celebrity before we had celebrities.”