Candy Meininger-Johns, co- owner of Meininger Art Supply, one of Colorado’s oldest family-owned businesses, died at her home Aug. 21 after a long battle with cancer.
She was 61.
Meininger-Johns and her brother, Henry Meininger III, took over the business from their father, Henry Meininger Jr., who ran the store, which is now 128 years old.
The Meiningers just opened a store in Boulder (on the Hill), adding to the one at 499 Broadway in Denver and another in Colorado Springs.
Customers wanting to buy everything from tiny brushes to huge canvasses are loyal to Meininger.
“If you’re an artist, Meininger’s is mecca for you,” said Ruth Ann Swank, an artist in Surprise, Ariz., who formerly lived in Denver.
Just walking in “gets your juices going,” Swank said.
Neither Meininger-Johns nor her brother is an artist.
“She couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler,” said her husband, Bob Johns. But both loved the business.
“We’re entrepreneurs, but we’re very familiar with art and artists,” said Henry Meininger.
The store has art books and classes and “the widest inventory I ever saw,” Swank said.
“You can always spend as much time as you like. The clerks are friendly, but they aren’t pushy” as people deliberate about their purchases, Swank said.
Meininger Art Supply sells framing materials, watercolor paper, easels, silk-screen materials, furniture for artists, pens and gift items. And it has an area for kids.
Meininger-Johns was a co-founder of Art Students League and served on the board.
She was a volunteer and donor to many local projects, many of them sponsored by Zonta, a businesswomen’s organization.
The charities included Recording for the Blind; SafeHouse Denver, a place for abused women and children; Freedom Service Dogs; the Women’s Bean Project; Florence Crittenton School for girls; a center that helps adults finish high school; and an organization that helps parents separated from their children.
“She was fun, outgoing, giving and had a lot of gusto,” said a longtime friend, Jeannie Snider of Littleton.
Bette Jo Meininger was born in Denver on Dec. 1, 1947. Her parents disagreed on what to name her and settled on Bette Jo, but everyone called her Candy, said her husband.
She attended Mesa State College in Grand Junction and the University of Colorado.
She married Bob Johns on Oct. 20, 2001, 10 years after they began dating. They had no children.
Meininger Art Supply was opened by her great-grandfather, Emil Meininger, a Chicago bookbinder whose business was destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871.
Ten years later, Emil Meininger moved to Denver and opened a bookbinding and art supply store at 430 Larimer St. Through the years, the store had various locations: on the 16th Street Mall, two locations on Tremont Street and finally on Broadway.
In addition to her husband and brother, Meininger-Johns is survived by nephews and nieces.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
