WPA Art Inventory Project

Irving Katzenstein was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1902 and remained a resident there for his entire life. He attended classes at the Hartford Art School and studied under Albertus E. Jones. He then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts studying under Arthur B Carles. Even after Carles was dismissed from the Academy, Katzenstein and a friend studied with him in an old movie theater. Katzenstein then traveled to Paris, living there from 1928 to 1931. He fell under the influence of Cezanne and Matisse and the avant-garde. After he returned he worked for the WPA from 1938 to 1940, completing forty two easel works of landscapes and still life. Katzenstein was a local celebrity as a result of his teaching and popularity as an artist. In the Greater Hartford area for several decades, he taught at the Ann Randall School for Creative Arts, the West Hartford Art League and the Hartford Jewish Community Center. He sold many paintings to local people, and his work still attracts art lovers. Katzenstein was a member of the aforementioned organizations and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and Connecticut Watercolor Society. He won prizes for his oils and watercolors and exhibited throughout Connecticut and New York. He had what contemporaries called a “sensitive style” that was “poetic” and “lyrical.” Although his work sometimes approached abstraction, it held a tension between traditional and modern styles. He once commented that an “idea is the reason for art.” The “great artists,” he continued, “arrived at their painting through contemplation.” Above all, Katzenstein was respected for his craftsmanship, his affable personality, and his style as a teacher that encouraged his students. In a review of a 1956 retrospective exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Theodore Parker, drama critic for the Hartford Courant, wrote that the exhibition was a “harvest for the quiet eye.” Katzenstein died in 1973, and in the next year the West Hartford Art League, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the Hartford Jewish Community Center co-sponsored a retrospective of his art at the Atheneum. To this day, Katzenstein and Howard Rackliffe, another WPA painter, remain popular with art collectors in the Greater Hartford area.

Sources: In doing research on Katzenstein, this author utilized theHartford Courant database, but there were so many articles mentioning him, I decided to cite only those that were comprehensive and analytical. The project also received biographical material about Katzenstein and the 1974 exhibition from Michael Shortell, owner of Shortell Framing in Hartford, and is appreciative.  WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; Who Was Who in American Art [1985], p. 328;Hartford Courant: “Hartford Painter’s Work in Retrospective Show,” April 15, 1956; “Irving Katzenstein Dies, Arts Academy Founder,” December 14, 1973; T. H. Parker, “A Hartford Painter,” April 21, 1974; Jolene Goldenthal, “Katzenstein Paintings at the Atheneum,” April 21, 1974; Jolene Goldenthal, ”Portraits by Katzenstein Shown,” September 29, 1074. The following are from the Michael Shortell Collection of Materials Pertaining to Irving Katzenstein: Resume (1974?); “League Honors Artist in Show at Wadsworth,” West Hartford News, April 11, 1974; Paul M. Laporte, “The Work of Irving Katzenstein,” (ND); W.M.P.; “Irving Katzenstein, 1902-1973,” typed copy, “Irving Katzenstein,” 8 From Connecticut, Catalogue to Loan Exhibition, April 22-May 29, 1960 Wadsworth Atheneum, p. 14. Also see William Zimmer, “Perennial Favorite in a Compact Show,” New York Times, August 25, 1996.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Irving Katzenstein:

Rolston Keeler was born November, 1882, in New York City. He studied at the National Academy of Design for five years and for one season at the Chase School. He moved to Connecticut in 1928. He was one of the most prolific painters for the Connecticut WPA Federal Arts Project, creating 276 watercolors of Connecticut landscapes, 33 pencil sketches, 45 oils, and two mural panels.  Keeler’s date of death is unknown.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985), p. 330; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), p. 478.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Louis Keeler:

Little is known about Estelle Kellogg except that she exhibited art at the Darien Guild of the Seven Arts. She worked for the WPA’s predecessor, the Public Works of Art Project, and for the WPA Federal Arts Project, completing the mural Art Education of Children for the Rice School in Stamford, Connecticut. Her dates of birth and death are unknown. There is only one unconfirmed person by this name on the Social Security Death Index, and the entry shows that this person was born in 1907 and died in 1986.

Sources: WPA Allocation Card; Social Security Death Index; “Brief Items,” New York Times, February 9, 1930; “Notes of Social Activities in New York and Elsewhere,” New York Times, May 2, 1930; “Out of Town,” New York Times, August 14, 1932; AskART.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Estelle Kellogg:

Luman P. Kelsey was born in Denver, Colorado in 1906. He studied art in high school and attended a private school. Prior to the Depression he was a portrait photographer. In 1931 he wed Dorothea Story and moved to North Canton, Connecticut. Totally self-taught, Kelsey started a ceramics studio and kiln of his own in 1934. Before working for the WPA Federal Arts Project, he made pottery for the Public Works of Art Project. For the WPA he created over 600 pieces of hand made pottery in just two years. As a result of the wide distribution, he was known as one of the foremost ceramics artists in Connecticut. He was on the Board of Directors of the Gallery of the Canton Artists Guild, Inc. when it opened in August 1960. Kelsey’s date of death is unknown, though it may have been between August 1960 and October 1961.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; Lillian Kaplan, “Renaissance in Canton,” Hartford Courant, September 4, 1960; “Canton-Gallery Will Operate at Canton St. School, Hartford Courant, August 4, 1960; “Canton-United Fund Kicks Off , Sets Goal of $10,000,” Hartford Courant, October 13, 1961.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Luman Kelsey:

Walt Killam was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1907. His WPA biography stated that he “earned his way through High School by conducting a dance orchestra.” He attended the Rhode Island School of Design from 1924-1928. He told the WPA that “he has succeeded in art only by forgetting, through work, the credos that were thrust upon him in Art School.” Killam held a variety of jobs including house painter, carpenter, shoe salesman, grocery clerk, gas station attendant, and stone cutter. In the art world, he taught at the Millbrook Boys’ School in New York in 1933 and 1936, was a guest instructor in advanced painting and drawing at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1936-1938, and taught art at the Noank Connecticut Summer School. He was an artist of marine subjects and a member of the Mystic Art and Essex Art Associations and the Noank Watercolor Society. Killam exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and places within Connecticut such as the Mystic Art Association and Silvermine Guild of Artists. He became involved in the Public Works of Art Project in New York City as a supervisor in charge of four hundred mural and easel painters. From 1935 to 1936 he was a supervisor of the Dutchess County, New York Public Works of Art Project. In 1938 he began painting for the Connecticut Federal Arts Project completing 41 easel paintings. Killam retired from painting in 1960, and he and his wife concentrated on their Chinese and Japanese antique business in Chester. He also raised bonsai trees and belonged to the Bonsai International and American Bonsai Societies. He became involved in the Chester Historical Society and served on the Chester Conservation Commission. Killam died in 1979 in San Jose, California.

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who In American Art (1985), p. 136; New York Times articles:  Edward Alden Jewell, “Rambles in Connecticut,” August 25, 1935; Stuart Preston, “Up In Connecticut,” September 5, 1954; Stuart Preston, “Summer Shows In Connecticut,” July 31, 1955; Francis Phipps, “Netsuke: Miniature Sculpture,” January 13, 1980; Hartford Courant articles:  “Walt Killain [sic] Has Exhibit At Gallery,” January 28, 1940; “CD Course Will Open June 7,” December 28, 1963; C. A. Marland, “Couple Build Oriental Corner in Chester,” March 1, 1970; “Exhibit To Show Old Oriental Art,” January 23, 1973; “Man Elected Chairman of Conservation Agency,” February 13, 1973; Charles Marland, “Chester Man Practices Oriental Art of Stunting Tree Growth,” October 21, 1973; “Committee Compiling Book on Italians,” February 16, 1975; “Chester Plant Business,” May 19, 1976; Obituary, July 19, 1979.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Walt Killam:

Troy Kinney was an illustrator, painter, etcher, and print maker/graphic artist. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri on December 1, 1871. He lived in Chicago before attending the Yale School of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1896. He also studied at the Chicago Art Institute. Kinney married Margaret West, who was also an artist, and they collaborated on illustrations for several books and covers for Harper’s Bazaar Magazine. So admired was this collaboration that people referred to them as “The Kinneys.” In 1910 a book publisher sent the couple to Spain to make a set of illustrations for the first English translation of the book Blood and Sand. While in Spain Kinney became fascinated with Spanish dancing and spent several years studying it. In 1914 he wrote a book on the subject titled The Dance, Its Place in Art and Life. In 1926 he and his wife moved to Falls Village, Connecticut. He first worked for the predecessor to the WPA Federal Arts Project, the Public Works of Art Project and then, in 1937 joined the WPA, completing five easel works. They were allocated to the Housatonic Valley Regional High School, Fairfield State Hospital, and the Winsted School Board. Among honors he received was election as an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1933. According to the New York Times, Troy Kinney died in a hospital in Canaan, Connecticut on January 28, 1938, “after an emergency operation for an abdominal ailment.”

Sources: WPA Artist’s Work Card; WPA Biography; AskART; Who Was Who in American Art (1985) p. 338; Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters (1986), p. 491; Wikipedia; “Modern Dances Held to Mean a Modern Renaissance,” New York Times, May 3, 1914; “Allies the Dance to the Fine Arts,” New York Times, April 16, 1916; “Art Exhibitions of Paintings, New York Times, November 28, 1920; “The Dance as Architecture-Music Afield in a Season’s Reviews,” New York Times, May 13, 1928; “Troy Kinney Dead; Artist and Author,”New York Times, January 30, 1938; “Mrs. Troy Kinney, Artist, Dies at 80,” New York Times, January 13, 1952; Troy Kinney, Author and Artist, Dies,” Hartford Courant, January 30, 1938.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Troy Kinney:

Walter Korder was born in Berlin, Germany in 1891. When he was eighteen months old his parents immigrated to the United States, settling in Hartford, Connecticut. He attended local schools and classes at the Hartford Art Society. He received one of four scholarships awarded in the U.S. to attend the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. After graduating Korder came back to Hartford and worked with his father “decorating many period rooms in the old Hartford mansions.” (Hartford Courant, March 23, 1962) During World War I he painted portraits of “buddies” in the First Battalion, Adjutant General’s Office in Washington, D.C. 

Korder was known for his portraits and murals. He painted many murals for the predecessor to the WPA Federal Arts Project, the Public Works of Art Project. During the WPA, he was an assistant administrator in the Hartford office. He also supervised the creation of the famous Hartford Nativity Scene composed of larger than life figurines set up first in December 1938, and he oversaw its assembly in Bushnell Park every year thereafter for a couple decades. Korder was a respected art teacher running art classes at various art leagues in the Hartford area. He exhibited his works widely and won prizes. He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, a charter member of the Connecticut League of Art Students, and member of the West Hartford Art League. Korder died in March 1962.

Sources:  WPA Artist’s Work Card; AskART; “Hartford Public Buildings Richly and Lastingly Adorned As Uncle Sam Becomes Nation’s Most Lavish Art Patron,” Hartford Courant, July 1, 1934; Elizabeth W. Wolcott, “Nativity at Bethlehem; A Traditional Biblical Scene is refitted for Bushnell Park,” Hartford Courant, December 12, 1854; “W. O. R. Korder Dies, Portrait Artist, Teacher,” Hartford Courant, March 23, 1962.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Walter Korder:

Samuel Kravitt was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1913. In 1929 he dropped out of high school intending to become a pilot but decided to pursue a career in photography after borrowing a World War I aerial camera. He opened his first portrait studio in 1932. Under the WPA Federal Arts Project he was one of four photographers. Ten of his photographs were exhibited at the New Haven Tercentenary Exhibition. From 1937 until 1939 Kravitt documented the construction of the New York World’s Fair. In 1962 he started a film production company that created educational, medical, and civic films. His work is now housed in the collections of many prominent institutions including the Library of Congress, the New York State Museum, the Wolfsonian-Florida International University Museum of Art and Design, and Yale University. In the early 70s tragedy struck his family. His daughter, Mary Jane Kravitt, was murdered in her San Francisco apartment. Samuel Kravitt vowed to hunt down the killer and traveled to dozens of countries trying unsuccessfully to find him. Kravitt died in 2000.

Sources: Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2004/04-039.html); “He Hunts Daughter’s Killer,” The Hartford Courant, July 20, 1972.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Samuel Kravitt:

Nothing is known about Webster C. Kullberg except that he worked for the WPA Federal Arts Project from 1940-1941, that he completed 16 easel works in oil, and that he lived in Westport, Connecticut during this time.

Source: WPA Artist’s Work Card.

Works of Art Listed in CT Archives’ database from Webster Kullberg: