Paul Chidlaw

Paul Chidlaw (April 5, 1900 – April 25, 1989) was an American painter and art instructor who spent most of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Early life, studies and travels Paul Chidlaw was born in Cleves, Ohio, on April 5, 1900, to Edward H. and Carolyn (Guise) Chidlaw. He resided in Cincinnati for the majority of his life. He was obsessed with the art world since the age of eight when he would get clay from the fields and creeks to make ceramics. When he was growing up in Cincinnati his aunts would take him to the Cincinnati Art Museum and they would point out the "finished" and "unfinished" works. The Frank Duveneck paintings were "unfinished."

He studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1919 to 1923.

In 1927, after working as a designer for commercial firms in Cincinnati for several years, he traveled to France and studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau. He later moved to Paris and studied with Jean Despujols and André Lhote.

After traveling extensively in Europe, Chidlaw lived in Morocco for a year.

Professional career Chidlaw returned to Cincinnati in 1935 and taught and painted various commissions including Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals under the Federal Art Project. During World War II, he served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

After retirement, he taught drawing and painting in a studio in the Rookwood Building in Mount Adams from 1964 to 1977, when he was appointed artist-in-residence at Edgecliff College. In 1979 Edgecliff awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Toward the end of his life, his eyesight failed due to macular degeneration but he then turned to music to inspire his final abstract paintings.

Quotes If you see it, it's there. I like to leave something for the viewer to do because I don't believe that it's right for anyone to take your imagination completely away from you. and The Farm Has a Song (an oil painting on canvas in 1978). He painted in oil, watercolor, acrylic, etchings, pastel, charcoal and pencil.

In 1986, the Art Academy of Cincinnati named the Chidlaw Gallery after him because they considered him to be one of the finest artists (and certainly the earliest abstract expressionist) in the 20th Century in the Cincinnati area. Tom Wesselmann, American artist associated with the Pop Art movement

Family Childlaw married Madge Smith, a librarian at the Cincinnati Art Museum, in 1952.

He died of heart failure on April 25, 1989, at his Hyde Park home at the age of 89. He is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.