Amy Lillian Kimpton was born on 1 March 1890 in Holland, Ottawa County, Michigan, a daughter of Robert and Anna S. Kimpton. Anna was Robert's second wife and mother of his younger children, including Amy. They married about 1885 in Michigan. Robert's first wife, Lucy, died in Holland on 4 August 1881. Robert and both wives were English immigrants. Robert was employed as a railroad car repairer in Holland during the 1880, 1900 and 1910 censuses and retired there in the 1920 and 1930 censuses. Several of Kimpton's daughters were teachers. 

Amy Kimpton, 1951

    Amy Kimpton was employed as a teacher during the 1910 census of Holland, Michigan. She has not been located in the 1920 census. Amy and sister Eva were living at 132 Rosiland Pl., Toledo, Ohio, employed as teachers in 1923, according to the Toledo City Directory. She was alone at the same address in 1925 and living with her family in Muskegon, Michigan in 1926 employed as a teacher, according that city's directory. Amy was living in a dormitory on 116th Street, Manhattan District, New York City during the 1930 census. Kimpton is listed in the 1929/1930 Columbia University student directory.

Amy Kimpton, 1940

    According to various Thomas A. DeVilbiss High School yearbooks Kimpton attended Toledo University, Michigan State Normal College, Columbia University and the New York Art Students League and the Summer School of Painting at Saugatuck, Michigan. These biographies also indicated she was a member of the Commercial Art Guild and had exhibited at the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio Watercolor Show and Scarab Club. Kimpton had a B.A. from Toledo University and her M.A. was from Columbia University. She was member of the Ohio Watercolor Society, Michigan Watercolor Society, Ohio Art Education Association, Western Arts Association and National Arts Association. It was also noted that she was a documentary film art director.
    According to the 1933 Bulletin of the Toledo Naturalists Association, Amy Kimpton was a director in the art department at DeVilbiss High School in Toledo. Kimpton exhibited at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1935 and participated in the Great Lakes Exhibition at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy in 1938. She is mentioned in Art Magazine, Volume 13, in 1938. She won a first prize for an oil painting at a competition in 1947.
    An article regarding Miss Kimpton's work as an artist appeared in the Toledo Blade on 8 October 1948:

Amy Kimpton Works Displayed at Museum

Amy Kimpton is one Toledo painter who can be counted on to show more modern work with every show. Several oils that hang in her October exhibit at the Museum of Art are entitled "Symphony", an apt description of form and color in arrangement that has no counterpart in nature. Non-representational, or non-objective, if one wants to be technical

This is the first one man-show Miss Kimpton has had at the Museum since 1941, a period during which she has exhibited elsewhere and won competitions. In 1946, her first prize painting in the Ohio Valley Oil and Watercolor Show was purchased by Ohio State University.

Several other paintings by Miss Kimpton show definite growth in abstract style, such as "Thompson's Cave" and "Carnival".

Others satisfy the eye that want a painting to be recognizable as a picture. Her "Lake Erie" is one that never can be mistaken for "Lake Michigan".  (Just as Eliot O'Hara's "Lake Michigan" would never be mistaken for Erie.)

About 20 paintings comprise the exhibit, oil, watercolor and gouache. Most of them have been painted in the last year.

    Kimpton is listed in Mallett's Index of Artists and Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide.

Amy Kimpton signature

    Amy L. Kimpton died on 27 April 1963 in Toledo, Ohio. Her obituary appeared in the Toledo Blade on 29 April 1963:

Amy Kimpton - Retired Art Teacher at DeVilbiss High

Amy L. Kimpton, 1757 Wellesley Dr., retired DeVilbiss High School art instructor, died Saturday of a stroke in a Holt, Mich., nursing home.

A native of Holland, Mich., she spent most of her life in Toledo, also teaching at Stickney and Robinson Schools and Woodward High School before her retirement in 1960.

Miss Kimpton received a master's degree from Columbia University and studied at the Art Students League in New York and also in Italy and Mexico.

For many years she was a prize-winning exhibitor in art shows, winning the Roulet medal here in 1942 and first prize in water color in 1946 in the Ohio Valley show. This painting became part of Ohio University's permanent collection. She also had three shows at the Toledo Museum of Art.

She was a member of the national and Ohio retired teachers associations, the Toledo Teachers Association and the Toledo Artists Club.

Surviving are sisters, Mrs. Edith Coyer and Mrs. Ann Vandevere, both of Vermontville, Mich., and Mrs. Laura Edwards, Lansing, Mich. and brothers, Robert, Miles City, Mich.; Edgar, Muskegon Heights, Mich.; William, Detroit, and Charles, Ann Arbor.

Services will be held Tuesday at 10:30 a. m. in the Gorsline-Runciman Mortuary, Lansing, with burial in Spring Lake, Mich. The family requests that any tributes be in the form of contributions to the scholarship fund of Art Interests, Inc.

    Eileen Tomlinson was born on 22 March 1917 in Cincinnati, OH, a daughter of Jacob Sheldon and Antonetta Welage Tomlinson. Jacob's occupation in the 1920 census of Cincinnati was "Student, Federal Board". Eileen attended the University of Dayton where she received a degree in education. She received a masters in art from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. She became an art professor at the Athenaeum in Cincinnati for nine years and, at the same time, taught at Regina High School. She later became "artist in residence" at Salem Heights. She moved to San Luis Rey, CA in 1968 and taught art at the San Luis Rey Academy until 1977. She became a nun about 1937. She worked in oils, watercolors, calligraphy, sculpture, woodcarving and ceramics. She also worked with arts and crafts.

    Eileen Tomlinson's obituary appeared in the North County Times, a San Diego and Riverside County newspaper, on 10 June 2010:

    Robert Wray Manning was born 13 September 1896 in London, Ohio and raised in Columbus, Ohio. He was a painter and illustrator. Manning received a four year scholarship to the Columbus Art School and three years of scholarships to the School of Fine Arts in New York. He studied with Robert Henri, Walt Kuhn, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. Manning served in WWI in a machine gun company in France. While serving in France, he continued to draw and some of his drawings were reproduced in Cleveland newspapers. After the war he returned to Cleveland, taught dramatics and married a fellow drama instructor. Manning later started a commercial art agency, Manning Studios. The Mannings had a home in Sarasota, Florida where Wray had a studio by 1962. At this studio Manning created twenty four oil paintings used in the Heritage Press edition of George Eliot's Mill on the Floss. Manning received a copyright for these illustrations. Manning also illustrated other books for Heritage Press.
    He is listed in Who Was Who in American Art (1962), Who Was Who in American Art by Falk, Davenports Art Reference and Price Guide, Mallett's Index of Artists, and Cleveland: the making of a city by Rose.  Manning exhibited widely including at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Cleveland Art Museum and Carnegie Institute. It seems likely that Manning was a member of the Cleveland Art Club at some point as some of his work was reproduced in the monthly magazine of that organization.

    Otto Walter Beck was born on 11 March 1864 in Dayton, Ohio, a son of Charles and Louise Schnicke Beck.

    Katherine King Pflager was born 2 December 1907 in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of three daughters of Walter Ephraim and Emily D. King. Walter King was a wealthy businessman in Cincinnati. He was involved in the plumbing business in 1910, 1920, and 1930. He had his own company, The Walter E. King Company, by 1916.  Katherine attended Wellesley College. A Katherine M. King attended the Art Institute of Chicago and was a member of the Chicago Art Students League. Katherine King Pflager received her social security account number before 1951, while living in Illinois, so it is possible she could be the same Katherine King, though Falk reports that Katherine M. King was born in Russellville, Arkansas. Katherine married Henry Barber Pflager about 1968 in St. Louis, MO. His first wife was Dorothy Holloway Pflager, a listed artist and friend of Katherine. Henry B. Pflager was president of the Saint Louis Art Museum and a prominent benefactor of that organization. There are numerous records of the activities of Henry and Dorothy, and later Henry and Katherine's, in support of the museum. Henry died in 1972. I do not know the extent of Katherine's work as an artist. I have seen one other example of her work. I submitted a research request to the Saint Louis Art Museum, but have not received a response.

Label verso

    There is label on the back of the painting that gives the title. Glaize Creek is in the vicinity of St. Louis. I do not know how long Katherine lived in St. Louis. The son of Henry B. Pflager told me that Katherine moved back to Cincinnati after his father's death, but the Social Security Death Index reports that her last residence was in St. Louis. This painting came from a Cincinnati estate sale in 2009. Both of Katherine's sisters passed away in the 1980s. I have found no record of a marriage for Katherine prior to her marriage to Henry Pflager. Her sister Elizabeth did not marry, but her sister Winnifred marred John J. Lurhman in 1934, so it is possible that this painting came from the estate of one of Winnifred's children.
    Katherine died in August 1977 in Saint Louis, MO. Her sisters, Winnifred King Lurhman and Elizabeth King, made donations in her memory to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

    Dee Bottorff is a professional illustrator, artist, and art teacher with thirty years of experience from Columbus, Ohio. She earned a BFA in art from Miami University. She paints in acrylics, watercolors, and oils and also draws and works in mixed medias. She sells her paintings on ebay and from her web site. Shown above is one of her plein aire oils from my collection. This one was done on the Napa River near Calistoga, California.

    Walter Layman was born on 22 May 1871 in Covington, Kentucky and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, a son of John W. and Hannah Layman. He was a painter, illustrator, designer, and photographer. He studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, Art Student League of New York, and the American Art Association in Paris. Mr. Layman married Mary Dean about 1901. I was lucky enough to locate his granddaughter, Nancy Hoffman, who shared her knowledge of him with me. I found Mr. Layman in census records in Cincinnati in 1880, Chicago in 1900, St. Louis in 1910, and New Orleans in 1920. I also found emigration records that show Mr. Layman entering the United States at various times from Canada and Cuba, and with ports of embarkation including Southampton and Liverpool, England and Havana, Cuba. One record shows Mr. Layman as a resident of Santa Fe Isle of Pines, Cuba. I was not sure that I had the right man until Ms. Hoffman confirmed that her grandfather was a real rover, often leaving his wife and child and traveling to Europe and even to Pakistan. One of his favorite subjects was Native Americans, who he captured using photography and watercolors. His photographs appeared in National Geographic magazine. The family holds many of his paintings, photographs, and writings.
    He is mentioned in Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary by Haverstock, Who Was Who in American Art by Falk, American Art Annual (various years), Mallett's Index of Artists, and Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide.
    According to his granddaughter, Mr. Layman died in the 1930s in Portland, Oregon.

    Mrs. Emma Leone Lane (Payne) was a Cuyahoga County, Ohio artist who was born in Oct 1857 in Canada and died in Euclid, Ohio on 10 January 1943. Her original training as a crayon artist was undertaken in the drafting room of her architect brother, Samuel W. Lane. She attended the Western Reserve School of Design for Women in Cleveland, which later became the Cleveland School of Art. Emma shared a studio in Cleveland City Hall in the 1890s with fellow Cleveland artists Arabella Copeland and Elizabeth B. Black, where she developed an interest in watercolors and illustrations. She studied watercolor art at the Cleveland School of Art under prominent artist Frederick Carl Gottwald starting in 1897, and at some point, studied under New York artist Leonard Ochtman. She seems to have been a life long student of painting and took classes at the Cleveland School of Art in 1907 and 1908 and studied at the Cleveland Art Club for many years.

    Emma exhibited her work at the Cleveland Watercolor Society, the Cleveland Art Club, and Women's Art Club of Cleveland. She later showed her work at the Cleveland Museum of Art May Shows in 1920, 1921, and 1935, winning an honorable mention in 1935 and selling the paintings shown in the previous shows. All of the paintings at the May Shows were done in oil. Some references report that she worked as an art teacher and illustrator. She was a charter member of the Women's Art Club of Cleveland and voted a life member in 1926.

    Emma signed her work as Leone Lane, Emma Lane, and after her marriage as Emma Lane Payne. I have seen an example of her work signed "Emma Lane". The signature is identical to the one on my painting, minus her married name.

    The painting in my collection is inscribed on back with Emma's address in pencil, "Stop 14 RFD, Euclid, O". It was purchased at an estate/consignment sale at Douglas Auctioneers, South Deerfield, MA on 23 February 2007 by the previous owner. I was unable to discover who the consignee was.  Judging by the address, this painting was probably done between 1912, when Emma and Harvey Payne were married, and 1930, when they were living at 24451 Euclid Avenue in Euclid, Ohio. The painting, or more likely the board it is on, appears to have been cut down, as the artist's signature seems to have been above the address, but only the bottoms of the letters of her name remain. It is hard to see the pencil inscription in the upper right of the image below, but the artist's doodles in ink are clearly visible, including her initials or monogram:

    Frederick Wm Kolde was a Cincinnati, Ohio artist. I think that it is possible that there is some confusion about this artist. The most detailed biography for Kolde, which appears in Falk's Who Was Who in American Art, describes him as a jewelry designer, craftsman, and painter. It also gives a list of his teachers, where he exhibited, and his affiliations. When I checked the federal censuses for Hamilton County, Ohio, I discovered that there were two men named Frederick W. Kolde in that county. They were father and son. The elder FWK was born in Breslau, Germany on 7 July 1870 and occupied as a jewelry designer in 1910, 1920, and 1930. The younger FWK was born on 29 March 1903 in Hamilton County, Ohio and was at home in 1910 and 1920, and occupied as a commercial artist living in his own home in 1930. Frederick William Kolde Sr. married Bertha Ott about 1901 in Hamilton County. I was unable to locate him in Hamilton County, Ohio in 1900. He emigrated to the US in 1890. 
    Records at the Cincinnati Museum of Art (CMA) show that FWK Sr. attended the Cincinnati Art Academy, taking two classes between 1895-1897. FWK Jr. took preparatory and high school classes at the Cincinnati Art Academy and attended there full time from 1917-1920. Records do not indicate whether FWK Jr. graduated or not. I suspect that biographers may have merged the accomplishments of the father and son, but do not yet have proof to support my suspicion. I forwarded a copy of my research to the CMA research library and found that they had little information on father or son. They were able to tell me that FWK Sr. worked as a jewelry designer for 65 years and took up watercolor painting when he retired, painting mostly local scenery, some marines scenes, and portraits. I have been fortunate to have been able to contact the Kolde family and FWK Jr.'s daughter-in-law was able to give me some very important information that makes it possible to identify the work of FWK Sr. She confirmed that the information from the CAM and also that FWK Jr. limited his artistic career to commercial art, painting only a few watercolors which have never been shown and are in the possession of the family. This signature of FWK Sr. is very distinctive, the signature on my painting being a very typical example.
    The painting in my collection is thought to be of a park near the Cincinnati Art Academy. It is glued to a card stock backing and bears pencil instructions for making a reduced size image "reduce to 4 3/8 inches, Note - halftone - 100 line screen - (filter for blue)" . It may be that this painting was done for a magazine, post card, or greeting card. Frederick Wm. Kolde Sr. inscribed the paper backing of my painting with the title and his name.
    Frederick William Kolde is mentioned in Mallett's Index of Artists,Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide, and Falk's Who Was Who in American Art. According to WWWAA, Kolde studied in Breslau, Germany and at the Cincinnati Art Academy. His teachers included Vincent Nowottny and Frank Duveneck. He was a member of the Cincinnati Crafters, Cincinnati Men's Art Club, and Ohio Watercolor Society. He exhibited at the Cincinnati Museum, Taft Museum of Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio Watercolor Society, and Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He worked as a jewelry designer for Fox Brothers and Whitehouse Brothers in Cincinnati and created chalices for St. Peter's Cathedral and St. William's Church in Cincinnati. Vincent Nowottny died in 1897, so it is safe to say that FWK Sr. was his student. Frank Duveneck died in 1919 and taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy during the times that both Koldes attended there. There is no record of the younger Kolde working as a jeweler. Some of the information in WWWAA could be for either man or for both. More research is needed to accurately credit father and son for their accomplishments.
     The elder FWK died 19 March 1957 and the younger FWK died on 11 December 1993 in Cincinnati. Works by Kolde are still fairly common, so must have been very prolific.
   

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unnamed, Katherine "Kae" Dorn Cass, 16" x 20", watercolor

    Katherine "Kae" Dorn Cass was born 15 May 1901 in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Frank J. and Gretchen Dorn. She married Harry B. Cass, a dentist, before 1930. She was a painter in watercolors, oils, and pastels and an instructor at the Cleveland School of Art for many years. She was employed as a teacher in 1930. She received her training as an artist at the Cleveland School of Art and the Academie Julian in Paris. She was a member of the Cleveland Women's Art Club and National Association of Women Artists. She exhibited between 1923 and 1946 at several places, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio Watercolor Society, Women's Art Club of Cleveland, and Cleveland School of Art. Her works are held by the Municipal College of Cleveland, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was a well respected teacher and I have seen numerous complimentary references by her former students.
    Cass is mentioned in Mallett's Index of Artists, Falk's Who Was Who in American Art, and Davenport's Art Reference and Price Guide. She died in Cleveland in March of 1971.