Jean Oliver Sartor

Who was Jean Oliver Sartor?

Jean Paxton Oliver Sartor was an artist in Shreveport, Louisiana, who was instrumental in the founding of the R.S. Barnwell Memorial Garden and Arts Center. A frequent exhibitor in the International Society of Experimental Artists, Sartor was also a member of the Shreveport Visual Arts Hall of Fame. Prior to her death, she was recognized as a founding member of the Hoover Water Color Society and had a solo retrospective exhibit displayed at the Meadows Museum of Art at the United Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Sartor graduated from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, near Lynchburg, Virginia. She painted and gardened on 12 acres that she shared with her husband of sixty-seven years, Emmett Alton Sartor, Jr.. He was a graduate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and a United States Army captain in World War II. He subsequently became the president and chief operating officer of the C. W. Lane Company, a real estate and oil and natural gas firm which was founded in Shreveport by his maternal grandfather. Alton Sartor was also involved in community affairs, including the United Way. He was a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International and a president of the Shreveport Little Theatre. Sartor's cousin, Dayton Waller, was from 1968 to 1972 a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. The Sartors were active in the J. S. Noel, Jr. Memorial United Methodist Church in Shreveport, which was built by his great-grandfather.