In March 1926 two friends Margaret Warner (my husband’s great aunt) and Caroline Mytinger symbolically threw off the “corset of conventionality” and set sail in the direction of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Against the advice of family and friends they set off with 400 dollars, a tin cigarette case filled with art supplies and a ukulele. Despite experiencing numerous mishaps and illness, the women eventually reached their goal, which was to paint and draw portraits of the indigenous people of Melanesia before the cultures were lost to the inevitable encroaching westernization.
Margaret Warner was an accomplished musician, and known as a person who could make music out of anything. She played the violin with virtuosity, but it was her beloved ukulele that accompanied her to Melanesia. Caroline had studied at The Cleveland School of Art and worked as a portrait artist and art model. She was one of the original Gibson Girls and was a model for the famous Charles Dana Gibson. The women met when Caroline took music lessons from Margaret and became instant friends. Early in their friendship they developed a keen interest in anthropology after reading the works of Margaret Mead; thus the idea of “the expedition” was formed.
The women planned to earn money along the way by painting portraits of Europeans in the British settlements. Their partnership was a successful one and had been previously tested. They had already gone on several long trips throughout the United States and beyond: “Margaret had been playing Hendricka to my Rembrandt ever since I chose the highroad making portraits. Together over these broad United States we had followed portrait commissions from city to hamlet and from coast to coast. In the many studios she entertained portrait sitters, singing them soothing lullabies with her ukulele, reading to them and generally keeping them awake in the pose and interested in paying for the finished portrait. In between times she kept house, mended clothing and the car, caught my tears of despair over a piece of bad work, and then went abroad and by some metaphysical system known only to Margaret attracted new portrait commissions. But it was her enduring patience and merriness that best qualified her.” (Pg 4, Headhunting in the Solomon Islands around the Coral Sea, Macmillan 1942)
The women returned in 1930 and Caroline’s work was curated by Margaret Mead at the American Museum of Natural History. There were other exhibitions including the Brooklyn Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.
In the early 40’s Caroline wrote two books based on the duo’s adventures: Head Hunting in the Solomon Islands around the Coral Sea and New Guinea Head Hunt.
