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Walter Stuempfig
American, 1914 - 1970
Free from the financial limitations of many struggling artists, Stuempfig was able to pursue his painting passion. He graduated from the Germantown Academy in 1930. In 1931, he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where his formal art training began, and where he later was to become part of the faculty from 1948 to 1970. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
His successful artistic recognition began when he was included in the 'Artists for Victory' exhibition, sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He traveled frequently to Europe, and especially loved Italy. After his wife's death in 1946, Stuempfig's devoted himself completely to painting. He enjoyed meadows and woodlands and painted portraits of friends and family. He worked independently, and his works demonstrate a concern for human existence. He had the ability to combine the old with the new on canvas, not unlike the paintings of Thomas Eakins, of the previous century.
Stuempfig died in 1970 with more than 1,500 works to his credit, and is represented in most of the major museums.
Source: Askart Archives
Walter Stuempfig Jr. was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1914. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania prior to enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1931. Stuempfig spent three years at the Academy under Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber and Francis Speight. In 1934 he won the Academys Cresson Scholarship for travel abroad.
Described as a "Romantic Realist," Stuempfig painted still lifes, portraits, landscapes and street scenes of Cape May, Philadelphia, and the Italian cities of Naples and Milan. He attained a national reputation when his self-portrait was featured on the cover of Life magazine. In 1948 he became an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a position he retained until his death in 1970.
Stuempfig was awarded a Silver Medal and the W.A. Clark Prize in 1947 from the Corcoran Gallery of Art Biennial, a prize from the National Academy of Design in 1953 and grants from the Ford Foundation and the American Institute of Arts and Letters. He was elected an Academician of the National Academy of Design and was a member of the Century Association. He exhibited extensively at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, National Academy of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, Fort Worth Art Association, Birmingham Museum of Art and in England. His paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Buffalo Museum, Chicago Museum of Art, Springfield Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, Toledo Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art and the St. Louis Museum of Art, among many others.
Source: Newman Galleries
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