Louis Grebetz

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(1902, Hungary - )

Louis Grebetz was born in Hungary and mostly raised during his adolescent years by his grandmother on the family’s farm there. Despite his rural surroundings, his grandmother encouraged him to take violin lessons from gypsies and attend school.

After the Hungarian Revolution in 1919, Grebetz joined his father and mother in Racine, WI. He continued his education and began work in a factory. He was married in 1929 to a young girl from the small village of Csetnek, Hungary. After a six-month honeymoon in Csetnek, they returned to Racine and began working with his father farming a piece of land in Berryville (between Kenosha and Racine).

In 1934, he started work at Racine Screw Works and remained there until at least 1948 (when the book, Rural Artists, was published). Grebetz began painting in his free time during his work as a laborer.

Grebetz painted with oils and watercolors. He began painting Old World cities and landscapes taken from small ink illustrations found in Cities of Northern and Central Europe. After realizing copying wasn’t creative, he learned to properly mix oil paints and began focusing on depicting his own surroundings, country-side landscapes.

Source: John Rector Barton, “Old World, New World”, Rural Artists of Wisconsin (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1948), 47-51.

Museum of Wisconsin Art, http://wisconsinart.org/archives/artist/louis-grebetz/profile-1407.aspx 

Photo credit: Photo credit: John Rector Barton, Rural Artists of Wisconsin (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1948), 47.