Walter Chapman

1912 - 2015

(News article) Walter H. Chapman, one of the Toledo area's best known artists and art teachers who was a prolific watercolorist - portraits by commission, landscapes and streetscapes - and encourager-in-chief to generations of novices, died Tuesday in Ebeid Hospice Sylvania. He was 102.

He'd been in ill health recently and ultimately developed pneumonia, his daughter Ann said.

Until early March, Mr. Chapman continued to attend the weekly gatherings of the Tile Club, the exclusive painting and dining fraternity. He'd been a member since 1954. "He truly was the grand master of the Tile Club," said Bob Lubell, a friend and fellow club member.

Mr. Chapman of Sylvania retired in the early 1970s from his job in advertising art for a local agency. He continued to accept commissions well into his 90s and completed three portraits in the years before his 100th birthday. The late Otto Wittmann, a former Toledo Museum of Art director, was reported to have recommended Mr. Chapman often for portrait commissions. To celebrate Mr. Chapman's half-century of artwork in 1988, the museum had a 45-painting exhibit in conjunction with the Toledo Area Artists' Exhibition.

Mr. Chapman portrayed the world around him, from India to the Massachusetts seacoast.

"Mr. Chapman wields a facile brush, but not as a coverup for mushy forms," the late Louise Bruner, longtime Blade art editor wrote in 1978 of an exhibition of his travel watercolors on display at the gallery Mr. Chapman and his wife, Jean, ran in Sylvania for 30 years. He depicted a person sitting in a chair, "and the relaxed arms have bones in them," Ms. Bruner wrote. His mountains had "solid form."

Mr. Chapman told The Blade a decade later he didn't put a lot of detail in painting.

"I only suggest it," he said. "My own painting I think of as realistic impressionism, a search for beauty and the spirit of things around me, people, landscapes, an old house, flower gardens. ... Sometimes I try to make a small statement, but mostly just the experience of painting is enough for me."

"He was the best of the best," said Peggy Grant, a longtime gallery director whose late husband, Adam, was a Toledo artist. "[We] understood how much he could help young artists coming up."

Mr. Chapman taught at the Toledo Museum of Art and at his own gallery.

"He believed it was his responsibility to keep hatching more artists," Mr. Lubell said.

He was born Dec. 7, 1912, to Lillian and Ralph Chapman. He was a graduate of Scott High School and studied at what is now the Cleveland Institute of Art. He moved to New York City and illustrated comic books.

He was an Army veteran of World War II and served at the Battle of the Bulge. He received a Bronze Star. His wartime illustrations were in Stars and Stripes and later published in the book, 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of Germany by Theodore Draper.

He was a former president of the Toledo Federation of Art Societies and received local, state, and national art awards.

Surviving are his wife Jean, whom he married in 1962; daughters, Ann Klingler and Patricia Bumpus; stepsons, Richard and John Swihart; five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Visitation is from 1-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday in Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township. Services are at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Sylvania First United Methodist Church.

The family suggests tributes to an art scholarship for study abroad in his name at Lourdes University; the Toledo Museum of Art; the Toledo Artists Club, or the church.

This story was written by Blade Staff Writer Mark Zaborney. Contact him at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.