Carl
Rudolph KrafftCarl
Rudolph Krafft
BORN: August 23, 1884 Reading, Ohio
DIED: October 18, 1938 Oak Park, Illinois
TRAINING
1903-1904 Evenings, 1910-1913 days Art Institute of Chicago with Harry M. Walcott and Edward Vysekal; 1911 evenings with Antonin Sterba, Art Institute of Chicago; 1911, 1913, 1915 Chicago Academy of Fine Arts; 1924-1925 Art Institute of Chicago, Leon Kroll
TEACHING
1915, 1926 Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, composition and color; 1925-1938 Oak Park Art League; and Privately, Oak Park; 1921-1923 Carl R. Krafft Outdoor School of Painting, Wildwood Station, Willow Springs, Illinois; 1923, 1924 Art Institute of Chicago, summer outdoor painting
RESIDENCES
1884-c.1890 Reading, Ohio; c.1890-1926 Chicago; 1926-1938 Oak Park
TRAVEL
1908-1910, 1919 Brown County, Indiana; 1913-1916, 1920 Ozark Mountains, Arkansas; 1916 Western U. S.; 1919 Brown County, Indiana; 1920s Galena, Illinois; 1925 Hudson River area, New York
MEMBERSHIPS/OFFICES
Municipal Art League, Springfield, MO (founder); Oak Park Art League (founder, president 1921-1922); Society of painters of the Forest Preserve (founder 1920); Society of Ozark Painters (founder 1914)
HONORS
1915 Englewood Woman’s Club Prize, Art Institute; 1916 Honorable Mention, Artists’ Guild of Chicago; 1916 Municipal Art League Purchase Prize, Art Institute; 1917 Fine Arts Building Prize, Artists’ Guild of Chicago; 1920 Bronze Medal, Peoria Society of Allied Arts; 1920 Mr. & Mrs. Frank G. Logan Second Medal, Art Institute; 1920 Bronze Medal, Illinois Artists Exposition; 1920 Honorable Mention, Friends of Our Native Landscape; 1921 Chicago Society of Artists Silver Medal, Art Institute; 1922 Silver Medal (Second Prize), Central States Exhibition, Aurora; 1925 Harry A. Frank Figure Composition Prize, Art Institute; 1925 Mr. & Mrs. Frank G. Logan First Medal, Art Institute; 1925 Honorable Mention, Springfield, MA Art Association; 1925 Gold Medal of Honor, Allied Artists of America; 1930 Allen Peal Prize, Oak Park Art League
ONE MAN EXHIBITIONS
1914, 1915 Palette & Chisel Club; 1920 Art Institute of Chicago; 1922 Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Gallery; 1924 Robert C. Vose Gallery, Boston; 1926, 1929, 1935 Chicago Galleries Association; 1939 Art Institute of Chicago
INTERESTING NOTES
Krafft’s work has often been compared to that of Daniel Garber. Later in his career, after being called "A Painter Poet of the Ozarks," Krafft disavowed being an Ozark painter as he sought a more universal rather than regional following. He said his friends Eugene Savage and Leon Kroll had given him "more sound guidance and inspiration" than he had received from any other source. During the Great Depression, Krafft’s paintings were copied and sold as genuine; to combat this he began thumb printing his works near his signature.
Source
Illinois Historical Art Project (E-mail) P.O. Box 570, Techny, IL 60082-0570