LaVera Pohl

BORN: 1901 - Port Washington, Wisconsin 

DIED:  1981 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Born La Vera Ann Kempfer in Port Washington, Wisconsin, on January 20, 1901.

She first went to school at Holy Trinity Notre Dame Academy School in Milwaukee, where, she wrote, the nuns sparked her interest in music and art. Her family moved to Beloit when La Vera was 12; she attended high school there. At about this time-whether before the move of after is not clear-her mother divorced her father. The experience was apparently traumatic for her; at least that was how she described it to friends years later. Although raised Catholic, she seemed to have little interest in religion after the divorce; in the vitae of her dissertation, she states her religious affiliation as "konfessionslos"-undenominational.
 
Throughout her childhood, she demonstrated artistic talent, and her artwork had already appeared in regional exhibitions when she was a teenager. In 1918, she came to Milwaukee to study art. The leading teachers in the city at the time were Alexander Mueller (1872-1935) and Gustave Moeller (1881-1931)-both Wisconsin natives who had studied in Germany. She took classes with both of them at the Wisconsin School of Art, an organization that soon after merged with the Milwaukee State Teachers' College (now University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee). According to her own account, she studied privately with George Oberteuffer and attended Saturday classes at the Art Institute in Chicago.
 
At the college, she also worked with Elsa Ulbricht (1885-1980), a painter and printmaker then just beginning her 44-year career as an art teacher in Milwaukee. Ulbricht remained one of Pohl's lifelong friends. Ulbricht also taught and was eventually director of a well-known summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan. With Ulbricht's help, La Vera received a scholarship to study at Saugatuck in 1922 and 1923. After graduation from Milwaukee State Teachers' College in 1923, she had her own decorating business in Milwaukee and continued to paint.
 
In 1925, she met William Pohl, a German-born businessman who resided in Milwaukee, he was the president of the Kepec Chemical Corporation.  Most of his business was conducted in Germany. An example of La Vera's enduring desire to make dramatic gestures was her choice of Christmas Eve as a wedding date. She seemed to be intent on constructing an interesting life; in the beginning and for many years thereafter, her husband, whom she called Billy, supported and even participated in her ambitions. The Pohls moved to Germany immediately after they married. They remained in Europe until 1939, with frequent visits to the United States.

She returned to the States for the period from December, 1936 to 1938, and enrolled at the Milwaukee State Teachers' College. In Germany, the Pohls lived in Siegburg, a small town between Bonn and Cologne where Mr. Pohl's factory was located. La Vera apparently set about immediately to involve herself in the cultural life around her. She began to learn German (a postcard written in 1929 to her mother-in-law, who lived in Viersen near Düsseldorf, indicated that she still had only a rudimentary grasp of the written language at that time). She also wrote several articles for American journals on contemporary German art and architecture. Of most significance to the subsequent development of her collection was her ambition to attend every art exhibition and museum she could find throughout the Rhineland.

Aside from her continuing pursuit of painting and design classes, Pohl also began an ambitious course of study in the history of art at the University of Bonn. That she was able to enroll as a full-time student at the university in 1933 indicates that by this time her German was good enough to follow a serious course of study with an important art-historical faculty. Later accounts verify that she considered the completion of a Ph.D. in Bonn her greatest achievement.

When the Pohls returned to the states in 1939, they moved into the Astor Hotel in Milwaukee, where they had an apartment in which they prominently displayed their collection. Pohl also had a studio there, where she worked and kept supplies. She began to lecture in art history and to write quite competent newspaper articles on art; she also was active in art education programs around town. She concentrated most of her energies, however, on her own artwork. In 1943, she designed a medal for the WACS, and created the sketches for the murals at Milwaukee's well-known German restaurant, Karl Ratsch's.

The most significant event in La Vera Pohl's career was her appointment-on her fiftieth birthday, January 20, 1951-as director of the Milwaukee Art Institute (today the Milwaukee Art Museum). Long involved in the activities of the organization, she was, at that point in the institutes history, the perfect, and indeed most convenient candidate. No doubt Pohl knew at the time she was considered an "intern director," although her appointment was not announced as such in the papers. As events proceeded, however, she became increasingly committed to the institute and to the programs that she had introduced. When her first year as director ended and nothing was said about stepping down, she came to see the appointment, at least in her mind and in her heart, as a permanent one.

By late 1954, plans were afoot to move the institute, then housed on North Jefferson Street, into the War Memorial, a modern building on the lakefront when just completed by the Finnish architect Eoro Saarinen. At the beginning of 1955, Pohl saw the handwriting on the wall. The final blow came when Elser suggested that she look for her own replacement, all while supervising the move to the War Memorial. In April of that year Pohl tendered her resignation.

When the Pohls moved to Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1958, their life together changed. She continued her own painting and her travels to Europe, the Middle East, and South America. When her husband died in November of 1970, Pohl returned to Milwaukee permanently.

Ironically, Pohl's unforgiving nature brought her collection to Lawrence University. Pohl always planned to give her collection to the Milwaukee Art Institute when she died. After her resignation, she changed her will, leaving the artworks and her library to Milwaukee-Downer College. When this school merged with Lawrence College in 1964, the newly created Lawrence University became the recipient of her bequest. Her last years were spent in ill health, and she died October 27, 1981.

Online Source:
http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/wriston/collections/pohl/pohl%20and%20her%20collection.htm

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Photo Credit: Pabst Mansion, Milw. WI