An archive of Ohio artists across all disciplines
Ambrose Bierce was born in a log cabin in Meigs County, Ohio, the tenth of thirteen children. He enlisted in the 9th Indiana Volunteers in 1861 and fought in major Civil War battles including Shiloh and Chickamauga. He became one of the most influent
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson was a Columbus-based visual artist whose work explored African American history, culture, and the human experience through paintings, drawings, sculpture, and mixed-media constructions. She worked with materials including
Ann Hamilton was born in Lima, Ohio, and moved to Columbus as a child. She earned her BFA in Textile Design from the University of Kansas and her MFA from Yale. Since 1992, she has lived and worked in Columbus, where she is a Distinguished Professor
Archibald Willard grew up in Bedford, Ohio, and later moved to Wellington, where he worked as a wagon painter before serving in the 86th Ohio Infantry during the Civil War. He painted his most famous work, The Spirit of ’76, around 1875 in Wellingt
Art Tatum was born in Toledo and was visually impaired from childhood, with blindness in one eye and limited sight in the other. He attended the School for the Blind in Columbus and was largely self-taught on piano. By 1927, he was performing on Tole
Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Ohio State University before leaving in 1918. She established herself as a photographer in 1920s Paris, where her portraits of cultural figures rivaled those of Man Ray. She is best known fo
Cass Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the grandson of the city’s first mayor. His family moved to Minnesota when he was nine, and he later studied at MIT before working for McKim, Mead and White in New York. He designed the Woolworth Building
Charles Burchfield grew up in Salem, Ohio, and attended the Cleveland School of Art from 1912 to 1916. His most important early work was produced in and around Salem, where he developed his distinctive style during the summer of 1915. In 1936, Life m
Clarence White was born in West Carlisle, Ohio, and raised in Newark, where he worked as a bookkeeper while teaching himself photography. After visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he took up the medium and within a few years
Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, and dropped out of high school at sixteen to work in an Akron tire factory before deciding to pursue acting after seeing a stage play. He worked in stock companies and oil fields before reaching Hollywood. He won
Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, a steel town on the Ohio River. His parents were Italian immigrants. He spoke only Italian until he started school at age five, and classmates bullied him for his accent.
Born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff in Cincinnati to a music teacher father, Day originally trained as a dancer before a car accident at age fifteen ended those plans. While recovering, she discovered her singing talent. She achieved commercial success a
Dorothy Dandridge was born in Cleveland on November 9, 1922. Her mother, Ruby Dandridge, was an actress who put Dorothy and her older sister Vivian into a song-and-dance act called the Wonder Children almost as soon as they could walk. The family mov
Elijah Pierce, the son of a formerly enslaved man, settled in Columbus in 1923 and opened a barbershop on Long Street, where he carved in a back room when not cutting hair. He created brightly painted narrative bas-relief wood panels illustrating rel
Ernest Reed was born in Jackson, Ohio, and began carving at age eight. He had no formal art training but by 1968 was earning a living as a stone and wood carver, first selling walnut carvings as roadside tourist items and later working in limestone a
Frank Duveneck trained at the Royal Academy of Munich and developed a dark, realistic style influenced by the Dutch Old Masters, particularly Frans Hals. He returned to Cincinnati and became the city’s most respected artist, training a generation o
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter known for his depictions of urban life in New York City. Born in Columbus, Ohio, he studied at Ohio State University before moving to New York to study under Robert Henri. A member of the Ashcan S
Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in Cincinnati for nearly twenty years, where her father was president of Lane Theological Seminary. She began her writing career there, joined a local writing group called the Semi-Colon Club, and wrote for abolitionist ne
Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio, and moved to Cleveland at age ten, where he began writing poetry as a teenager. His father, a candy manufacturer, invented Life Savers candy. Crane published his first poem at sixteen while attending East H
Hiram Powers moved to the Cincinnati area from Vermont at age fourteen and began his artistic career working in a wax museum, where his representations of scenes from Dante’s Inferno drew public acclaim. He modeled busts of prominent Americans incl
Howard Chandler Christy grew up along the Muskingum River in southeastern Ohio and studied at the Art Students League under William Merritt Chase. He first gained attention as a combat artist during the Spanish-American War and became famous for crea
James Thurber was born and raised in Columbus and attended Ohio State University, where he wrote for the campus newspaper and edited the humor magazine The Sun-Dial. He joined The New Yorker in 1927 and became one of the foremost American humorists o
Jenny Holzer was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, and received her BFA from Ohio University in 1972. She became one of the most prominent American conceptual artists, known for text-based public art projects using LED displays, projections, posters, and mar
Jim Dine was born in Cincinnati and attended evening classes at The Art Academy of Cincinnati before earning his BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He became a pioneering figure in the Happenings movement and was associated with Pop Art, though he nev