Albert Lorey Groll

Albert Lorey Groll (1866–1952) was an American artist and etcher. He was born in New York City and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, the Royal Academy in Antwerp, Belgium, and for some time in London. In 1910 he was elected into the National Academy of Design. He is best known for his landscape paintings of the American Southwest.

Life and career

Groll was born in New York in 1866, the son of a pharmacist immigrant from Darmstadt, Germany. During his early years he travelled to Europe to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, then called Royal Academy of Fine Arts, under Nicholas Gysis and Ludwig von Löfftz. Groll went back to New York in 1895 and moved from figure painting to landscape painting in part due to the high cost of hiring models. He also became well known as an etcher.

In 1904 Groll made the first of several trips to the American Southwest, travelling to Arizona with ethnographer Stewart Culin of the Brooklyn Museum, and later going to New Mexico with his friend the artist and illustrator William Robinson Leigh. and a gold medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1906.

In 1910 he was elected into the National Academy of Design, in 1919 Groll was elected as an associate member of the Taos Society of Artists, He was also invited to join the American Watercolor Society.

He died on 2 October 1952, aged 85 years old, with funeral services held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan.

Selected exhibitions

Venice Biennale, Venice, 1909. Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, 1910. Panama–Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915.

Style and legacy Groll's work is characterized by his skillful technique, rich colors, and poetic approach to landscape, being called a "musical dreamer in color", His landscapes are mostly realistic but also use abstract shapes. Gilcrease Museum, the University of Arizona Museum of Art, and the San Diego Museum of Art, among others.

Gallery