Ann Holmes personal papers

Ann Hitchcock Holmes was born on April 25, 1922 in El Paso, Texas. She later moved with her parents and younger brother to Birmingham, Alabama, where she attended high school and was inspired by the theater scene. She attended Whitworth College in Brookhaven, Mississippi, on a drama scholarship and after graduation returned to Birmingham to write plays and studied sculpture and painting. In 1942 she came to Houston to work for a newspaper and volunteer for theater and arts groups. She was hired by the Houston Chronicle and was named military editor during the war. In 1947 she became fine arts editor and held that position for four decades. In 1953 she received a fellowship from the New York Herald Tribune to cover the arts scene in Europe and then received a Guggenheim Fellowship for arts visitations in America in 1960. Holmes retired in 1988 to write a book on the Houston arts, but also became Critic-at-Large for the Houston Post until 1999. Her book remained unfinished at the time of her death in March 2009. She is also the author of Joy Unconfined: Robert Joy in Houston, a portrait of fifty years and The Alley Theater: four decades in three acts: a history of one of the nation's oldest resident theaters.