Walter C Hartson, one of the Founders of Allied Artists of America, was born in Iowa in 1866. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then went to New York City. He also studied in Holland and England. He exhibited widely from the 1895 Atlanta Expo to Pennsylvania Academy, Chicago, National Academy of Design, Boston Arts Club, Corcoran Gallery and more.Upon his return from Europe, Hartson painted mainly in New York and New England … mainly in Lyme and Litchfield Connecticut. He eventually settled in Wassaic, New York in 1917. In the 1930, in his 60s, he was honored to be included in the New York State WPA Art Project. The emphasis was on renderings of historic buildings to record them in their settings for posterity. His impressionistic oils of old stone houses along rivers in New York, Columbia and Duchess Counties. As of 2004 the record price for his paintings at auction was $6,600.00 for a Back Road - Wassaic oil painting.
Art Historian- Elaine Clayman