THE LIFE & LEGACY OF ARTIST ARTHUR KRAFT (1922-1977)
Compiled by Victoria Chick
Arthur Kraft was born in Kansas City, Missouri, a place that became, for him, an anchor in his short life. His talent for visual art was evident early on, and his parents enrolled him in Saturday classes at the Nelson Art Gallery. Kraft was somewhat precocious in marketing his art by launching his career as a young teenager at the Country Club Plaza Art Fair, where he was moderately successful at selling his work. In subsequent years, he became adept in many mediums and processes. He was lauded by Regionalist painter, Thomas Hart Benton: “Arthur Kraft…sculptor, mosaicist, fabricator of stained-glass windows, painter in all mediums, fantasist for children – for grown-ups…Arthur’s hand is in everything – adept at everything.”
Arthur Kraft liked working alone and, before his need for rehabilitative help, his art reflects the quality of child-like play many artists long to achieve, and to which Kraft brought sophisticated design.
His big break came when he won the Audubon Society first prize and received national and international attention with subsequent shows at galleries in California, New York, and Paris. In Kansas City, he was back at work doing easel painting, murals, and sculpture. In 1946, he was named one of 10 Outstanding Young Americans by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.
His most popular three-dimensional projects were animal sculptures that he sold to numerous shopping malls in the Midwest states. His bronze Penguin grouping located in Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza is his best known but was completed after his death. His much – loved mosaic tile mural with a circus theme was an eye catching 35’ by 17’ in size. The mural was on the exterior of the main Downtown Library next to the entrance of the Children’s Library. When the mural was first installed in 1960, Skylines Magazine gave it a craftsmanship award.
In 2020, when the library was scheduled to be demolished, the mural was removed in sections, was saved, and stored, rather than placed immediately in another location. But it is now installed and somewhat protected from the elements by an overhang behind the Sprint Center at 12th and McGee. It needs restoration.
Arthur Kraft studied at the Kansas City Art Institute for a year, began studying art at Yale, joined the army air corps, then, after WWII, finished his art studies and received his degree from Yale. From there, he returned to Kansas City, where he continued creative work. He was very successful but gave away as much artwork as he sold. One dubious anecdote about his unconcerned attitude towards money is that he opened a Swiss Bank account but couldn’t remember the account number. When it was suggested that he just ask the bank to give him his account number, he replied that he couldn’t remember the name of the bank.
His friends saw that he had developed an alcohol addiction that was affecting his health and encouraged him to spend time in rehabilitation. At their encouragement, he did spend the first of several periods in Rehabilitation. Kraft never stopped doing art, even in the rehabilitation places to which he went. At the state hospital in St. Joseph, Missouri, he authored the book Sounds of Fury, compiled of stories about fellow patients and included expressive drawings that depicted those stories and emotions very powerfully. Kraft’s natural empathy led him to be greatly affected by the people he met in the rehabilitation places he stayed. His brushwork was always loose and expressive. His color choices during most of his career were harmonic and light. In the last few years of his life, his palette became more saturated and intense. He produced many pieces where the energy of his abstract brushwork with color overtook suggestions of figurative work.
Kraft’s alcoholism may have led to his developing cancer, which he battled for a number of years, and finally being admitted to the VA hospital in Topeka, Kansas. His last work of art was a mural for the waiting room of the Topeka Veterans Administration Hospital, which has since been lost.
Victoria Chick is the founder of the Cow Trail Art Studio in southwest New Mexico, and is the visionary behind the Southwest Regional Museum of Art & Art Center in Silver City, New Mexico. She received a B.A. in Art from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and awarded an M.F.A. in Painting from Kent State University in Ohio. Visit her website at www.ArtistVictoriaChick.com
