John Canaday - Early Life

Early Life

John Canaday was born in Fort Scott, Kansas to Franklin and Agnes F. (Musson) Canaday. His family moved to Dallas when Canaday was seven and later moved to San Antonio, where he attended Main Avenue High School. Canaday entered the University of Texas in 1924 and earned a B.A. degree in French and English literature in 1929. He subsequently studied painting and art history at Yale University, where he received an M.A. in 1933. He taught at Washburn University of Topeka in 1933-34; at Newcomb College, Tulane University, New Orleans (1934–36); Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia (1936–38); and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (1938–50). In 1943 he traveled to the Belgian Congo and acted as a French interpreter for the Bureau of Economic Welfare. The following year he joined the United States Marine Corps. He served as a lieutenant in the South Pacific until the end of World War II, after which he returned to the University of Virginia. From 1950 to 1952 Canaday headed the art school at Newcomb College in New Orleans. He worked as chief of the educational division at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1953 to 1959. During this period he wrote the text for Metropolitan Seminars in Art, a widely distributed series of 24 portfolios published between 1958 and 1960 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.