John deMartelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1903. Thomas Hart Benton, the famous regionalist painter was one of his art teachers at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. DeMartelly also studied in Florence, Italy and London, England. He became a painter, and by 1937 had won prizes, including the Lighton prize for Best Painting by a Kansas City Artist. He also drew political cartoons and illustrations for a publisher. He was an instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute and later Michigan State University. His drawings, paintings, and prints are in collections of many museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Choreboy
This lithograph print shows the hay fields that were once prairie. At the edge of the field, a grove of trees have been preserved, possibly as shelter and habitat for wildlife, and as a windbreak. There is only one farmhouse for miles in this sparsely populated area. (1903 - )
Looking at the Sunshine
With a kiln behind him, a brickyard worker takes a break as he gazes across the lush, unending fields. While teaching in Kansas City, Missouri, deMartelly visited local brickyards “to watch the workers who were all black men. They were just fantastic in the way they handled the brick and tiles.” The lithograph also recalls the fertile land at a time when parts of the Midwest were reduced to dust bowls and further devastated by the Great Depression.
Blue Valley Fox Hunt
Give Us This Day
Two Old Toms
The Evangelist
