Emerson Everett Glass was born in poverty and died in poverty, having never sold a painting.  Glass's father was a foreman on a cotton plantation in the deep south, near the town of Clinton, Louisiana.  At the age of seven, a fire destroyed the boy's home and his father and mother died in the blaze.  Emerson himself was badly burned and scarred for life on the left side of his face and upper body... leaving him scarred in more ways than one.

A plantation worker took the young boy in and cared for him till he left home at the age of 23.  "Mammi Jax" was a black woman, born and raised as a plantation slave and served as cook for the master of the plantation.  The deformed Emerson Glass was worth little more than an object of abuse in southern society, even for a white boy... but to Mammi Jax, he was the son she never had, and always spoke to the boy as if he was the Prince of Baton Rouge, destined for greatness.  To the rest of the world, a boy with no education, no social acceptance and no hope for the future... EE Glass was a castaway.

When Glass was 13, the great depression hit this country like those freight trains that roared through Clinton but never stopped.  Nonetheless, despite the lack of education, Emerson found ways to make his own colors... from red clays and roots and berries, to rocks and bits of cloth ground into pigments, Glass rubbed his rudimentary pigments together and stored them in jars, spreading them onto cardboard panels with twigs and branches.  He would get off by himself for days at a time, spreading his handmade colors on bits of cardboard and shirt stuffers he was given from grocery stores and laundry services.  He knew nothing of government help for artists during the years of FDR and the WPA.  He simply worked alone in fields, far from civilization and the pain of exposure to society.

Prior to the death of Mammi Jax, Glass had never seen a real painting, met an artist or been to a museum.  Yet in Montgomery, Alabama, Emerson Glass found his first exposure... a show of the great impressionists at the Museum of Fine Art.  He wept for days in delight at the sight of the great masters... Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and others of the early modernist movements.  Color just for the sake of color became a new source of passion for Glass.  He took jobs washing dishes and sweeping floors so he could buy colors he had never seen before.  Slowly but surely, he grew in skill and determination to paint.

Emerson Glass met Birger Sandzen in Lindsborg, Kansas, staying briefly to study with the artist before continuing toward the west.  Glass did not attend Bethany College, but found a compassionate and understanding friend in the older artist.  Emerson always spoke of Sandzen in the most affectionate of terms, as he was one of the few people he ever met who treated him with dignity and respect.  Sandzen's influence on him went very deep, far beyond the teaching of simply artistic issues.  By the time he was 30, Glass was producing work that was maturing into his unique style.  It is known that he met William H. Walker, presumably in Kansas City.  Walker described him as an "innovative post runner of the American impressionists".  No other artists have been found to associate with or influence the work of EE Glass.  Because of his awkward appearance, he avoided public exposure and would not engage in social events so necessary for emerging artists of his day.  Without galleries or patrons, EE Glass was destined for obscurity for the rest of his life.

In 1954, Emerson met Nina Brandt.  The couple seemed like a perfect if not serendipitous match, for she was blind and he was deformed.  Under common law marriage, they lived together for the remainder of Emerson's life, when he died of natural causes at the age of 71 in a tiny apartment in a rural area south of Kansas City, Missouri.  What Nina did for Emerson was support his desire to see what she couldn't... the wide horizons of the great midwest, from the abundant wildlife and fields of grain to the majesty of the Rocky Mountains.  There is no evidence that they ever traveled east from the Mississippi River.

Nina was able to obtain government disability support, most of which was used for painting materials and travel expenses for she and her husband.  In return, Emerson taught her to read Braille... this despite the fact that he could not read himself.  Yet in his own words, he could "feel the language with her", and they both learned from books without print.

Little else is known about Emerson Glass.  He never exhibited his work and, as far as is known, never sold a painting.   The fact that he and Nina lived in the barest of circumstances was never a hindrance to their happiness together, and their privacy and seclusion was just what they liked.

POST NOTE:  Nina Glass died in March, 2007.  Two years prior to her death, and having no children or other relatives, she entrusted the estate of her husband's work to her executors and G. B. Tate & Sons Fine Art.  Mrs. Glass was a grand lady who's quiet manner spoke of an elegance that belied her circumstances.  The Tate's agreed not to offer or display her late husband's work until after her own death... for she could not stand the thought of any further rejection of her late husband or his work.  This was an absurd notion, seeing the exceptional quality Emerson's work... and yet the agreement has been honored to the letter.