ART DECO MAGIC

The Legacy of Gregory & the Boilers

Centennial Celebration Series 100 Years of Civics and the Arts in St Joseph City Hall and The Missouri Theater Architectural Ornamentation by artist Waylande Gregory 1927 to 2027

Boller Brothers - Architects

Carl (1868) and Robert (1887) Boller specialized in designing movie palaces during the early twentieth century, though neither formally studied architecture. Raised in St Joseph, they were the second and tenth children of German immigrants. The Boller Brothers helped shape the emerging architectural form of the American movie palace. They designed or consulted on the design and construction of more than three hundred theaters in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

Waylande Gregory – Architectural Ornamentation

Born in Baxter Springs, KS in 1905, Gregory was a creative prodigy writing, drawing, painting, composing and performing music and sculpting in clay. He graduated high school in 1922. He learned plaster casting at the Deaner Dental Institute in Kansas City which led to working in ornamental plaster. By 1923 he modeled plaster for Strong Hall at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and The Hotel President in Kansas City.

In St Joseph (fall 1926), Gregory designed ornaments for a new City Hall. The mayor’s office received detailed treatment with an elaborate ceiling. In his makeshift studio at Tenth Street and Frederick Ave, Gregory completed this assignment by January 1927. It was also in that studio that he designed the ornaments for the Missouri Theater, to be cast by his new employer, the Kansas City Ornamental Plaster Co.

Gregory had an illustrious career as one of the most innovative ceramists in the US creating massive outdoor works for the 1939 World’s Fair and working with the New Jersey WPA (Works Progress Administration). He was hailed as the leading ceramic sculptor in the country in the 1930s, erasing the line between fine and decorative arts. The Missouri Theater (Gregory’s only theater project) stands out as an “art deco wonder,” the finest example of his architectural creativity extant as it is truly a work of art – inside and out.