Louis Pohl
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Louis Pohl was an American painter, illustrator, art teacher, printmaker and cartoonist. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1915. A childhood illness made it impossible to walk without pain and prevented Louis from entering school until he was 8 years old. To keep Louis occupied, his parents would give him papers and pencils with which to draw. When 14 years old, Louis spent his summer caddying at a local golf course. A regular foursome of well-to-do women made an unusual wager—the loser would make their caddy's wish come true. Mrs. Yaeger paid for Louis’s tuition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati for two years. He spent the next 4 years as a teacher's assistant. He did most of the hands-on teaching given to the art students, and he also taught art to underprivileged kids on Saturdays. Eventually, Louis received his certificate of art upon the completion of a full standing nude copy of a Rembrandt that hung in the Cincinnati Art Museum.
When the Second World War broke out, Louis enlisted in the Navy. He was sent him to Hawaii and assigned to paint ships in dry dock. He was injured when a destroyer caught fire, and the explosion knocked him off the second level of a scaffold. Louis was medically discharged and reluctantly returned to Cincinnati, where he was hired by the Works Progress Administration to supervise other artists. In that capacity, he painted a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1946, Louis got a call from a former teacher and friend, Bill Stamper, who had talked the Board of Directors of the Honolulu Academy of Arts into establishing a professional art school. Bill invited Louis to come to Hawaii to start the school, where Louis taught for 35 years. Louis also taught art at the Kamehameha Schools for 15 years. In 1960, He wrote and illustrated the book, "It's Really Nice!” published by Little, Brown & Company.
Louis Pohl died December 22, 1999 in Honolulu. His widow still operates the Louis Pohl Gallery, also in Honolulu. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Hawaii State Art Museum and the Honolulu Academy of Arts are among the public collections holding works by Louis Pohl.
[edit] Selected works
 'Kids', oil painting by Louis Pohl |
 'Kalapana, Day Seven', oil on canvas painting by Louis Pohl |
 'Pikai', lithograph by Louis Pohl, 1951 |
[edit] References
- Haar, Francis and Neogy, Prithwish, "Artists of Hawaii: Nineteen Painters and Sculptors", University of Hawaii Press, 1974, 96-103.
- Pohl, Louis, "It's really nice!”, Boston, Little, Brown, 1960.
- Yoshihara, Lisa A., Collective Visions, 1967-1997, [Hawaii] State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997, 64.
