John de Martelly

John Stockton de Martelly (1903–1979) was a lithographer, etcher, painter, illustrator, teacher and writer.

Early life
John de Martelly was born in 1903 in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Florence, Italy, as well as the Royal College of Art in London. In the 1930s and 1940s, he taught printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute to the same students who studied painting with Thomas Hart Benton.

Works
De Martelly became a close friend of Benton, and was influenced by his Regionalist style. When Benton was fired from the Art Institute, the Board of Governors offered de Martelly Benton's job as head of the Painting Department. De Martelly was furious and quit. De Martelly's lithographs, sold through the Associated American Artists Galleries in New York in the 1930s and 1940s, captured the essence of the rural American landscape.

In 1943, de Martelly began teaching at Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he was named artist-in-residence in 1946. By the late 1940s, de Martelly abandoned Regionalism for Abstract Expressionism and closely studied Daumier.

Death
He died in 1979.

Collections

 * Detroit Institute of Arts
 * Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
 * Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan
 * Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan
 * Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Kansas
 * Smithsonian American Art Museum