Chet La More

Seeking quality artwork by Chet La More - especially from the 1930 - 1940.

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BORN: Dane County, WI 1908

DIED: Ann Arbor, MI 1980

Born on a tobacco farm in Dane County, Wisconsin, Chet La More grew up in Madison and briefly attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. Following that training, he went to Madison and was instructed by Arthur Colt, a student of Charles Hawthorn. 

He established a studio in Madison, doing figure and portrait painting, and increasingly realized how isolated he was from much of what was going on with American art, especially contemporary movements.  Unable to support himself with his painting, he took 'odd' jobs in a department store and taught an evening class in vocational art.  He also had his first one-person show, held at the student Union of the University of Wisconsin.

In the 1930s La More was an artist in the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project Graphic Arts Project painting murals. .  He then traveled to New York where he taught as a Professor of Art at the Albright Art School in Buffalo, NY.  He lived briefly in Baltimore where he did some teaching, catalogued paintings for the state house, was the editor of the Baltimore Art Association magazine, and met his wife.  

He served in the armed forces in Europe during World War II and returned to teaching at Buffalo before locating to Ann Arbor in 1947 to teach at the University of Michigan. He taught at Michigan until his retirement in 1974.

His works are part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940 and 1942.

Sources: askART, http://www.askart.com/artist_bio/Chet_Harmon_La_More/111555/Chet_Harmon_La_More.aspx

Smithsonian American Art Museum, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/chet-la-more-2774

Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/artists/3326