biography of Henry George KELLER (1869-1949)

Death place: San Diego, CA

Addresses: Cleveland, OH

Profession: Painter, etcher, lithographer, teacher

Studied: Western Reserve School of Design for Women (received special permission to attend); Karlsruhe Acad., Germany, 1890; returned to Germany, 1899, studying with Bergman, Düsseldorf; Zugel, in Munich.

Exhibited: AIC, 1902-46 (prize, 1930); Munich, 1902 (med.); PAFA Ann., 1911, 1925-31; Armory Show, 1913; NAD; CI, 1914-44; Cleveland Mus. Art, 1919, 1922, 1950 (retrospective); Corcoran Gal. biennials, 1921, 1943; South America; Witte Mus., 1928 (prize); WMAA, 1932-46; Calif. WCS, 1940

Member: ANA, 1939; Soc. Cleveland Artists

Work: AIC; CMA; MMA; BM; WMAA; BMFA; PMG; Oberlin Mus.; AGAA.

Comments: Considered by his contemporaries as the founder of the modern watercolor movement in Northeast Ohio. He was the area's most influential teacher of watercolor technique, teaching at the Cleveland Sch. Art for forty years (beginning in 1903). He also ran a summer school (formally established by 1909) at Berlin Heights, Ohio. Charles Burchfield was one of his students. Other positions: designed circus posters for the Morgan Lithograph Co. in Cleveland, 1890s.

Sources: WW47; William H. Robinson, Watercolor Painters of Northeast Ohio," American Art Review (April 1999): 164-75, 191; addl. info courtesy Anthony White, Burlingame, CA, who states that Keller was born in 1869 aboard a ship off Nova Scotia while en route to Cleveland; Falk, Exh. Record Series.

Legals