Carl Holty

Carl Robert Holty (1900–1973) was a German-born American abstract painter. Raised in Wisconsin, he was the first major abstract painter to gain notoriety from the state.

Personal life and education

Carl Holty was born in 1900 in Freiburg, Germany. His parents, Americans, lived in Freiburg while his father, a doctor, studied specialty medicine since 1899. His father was German, gaining citizenship in the United States in 1906. Eventually he decided to attend art school.

In 1925 Holty married and honeymooned in Europe, living there for the next ten years, first in Munich and then Switzerland. In Switzerland Mrs. Holty sought treatment for her tuberculosis, dying in 1930. He moved to Paris that year, before returning to the United States in 1935 and living in New York City. In New York he remarried Elizabeth and they had a daughter Antonia. He taught at Brooklyn College from 1950 until 1970. During that time he also was a visiting instructor at the Art Students League, Washington University in St. Louis, and University of Louisville. Upon his retirement from Brooklyn College he was awarded the title of professor emeritus. Holty died on March 22, 1973, in New York City.

From 1930 to 1935 he lived in Paris, exhibiting his work to good reception. There he met Robert Delaunay and joined Delaunay's group Abstration-Création as their Untitled, 1939; Amon Carter Museum Untitled, 1950; Kemper Art Museum Untitled, series, 1951; Brooklyn Museum

Notable exhibitions

Carl Holty: The World Seen and Sensed, 1980–81; Milwaukee Art Museum