Melville F. Stark (1903 - 1987) Oil on Canvas, Signed, Measures ( 16 x 20 inches ) w/frame ( 22.5 x 26.5 inches ) A leading figure in eastern Pennsylvania, Mel Stark was a plein-air painter and teacher who, with his good friend, Walter Baum, was devoted to enriching the cultural life of the Allentown area. He was also a key painter at the artists colony in Rockport, Massachusetts and in his later years, painted at Longboat Key Art Center in Florida. He taught at the Kline-Baum Art School, and Cedar Crest and Muhlenberg Colleges in Allentown, and was committed to the tradition of impressionist landscape painting. However, his reputation waned in the 1960s, when the public lost interest in impressionism and focused more on modernist movements. He was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree from Stroudsburg State College in Physical Education, but he had already started painting and subsequently abandoned Physical Education. He later studied art at the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, and the Philadelphia Museum School.

Good Condition