Note: This is not a real Wikipedia article, but a (real) work in progress. Please stand by while I improve and expand it to the point that I might copy and past it over to the (now rather barren) Paul Travis article, with the ultimate view of getting into the DYK section on the main page. I have no plans for it, really, after that...
Paul Bough Travis (1891 – 1975) was an American artist of the Cleveland School. After a childhood in rural Ohio, Travis moved to Cleveland when he was 22, where he enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art (today the Cleveland Institute of Art). He graduated in 1918, and enlisted in the Army shortly after. He was eventually sent to a base outside Le Mans, France, where he spent most of the remainder of the First World War.
On his return to Cleveland, he began teaching at the Cleveland School of Art, where he would remain for 38 years. In... , motivated by a personal fascination with Africa and funded by several Cleveland-area organizations, Travis went on an eight-month journey across the continent. While there, he took photographs and video, drew numerous sketches, and bought artifacts that had a lasting impact on his art.
Paul Bough Travis was born in Wellsville, Ohio in 1891[1] to Elizabeth Bough Travis and William Melancthon Travis.[2] After graduating from the local high school when he was 21, Travis taught for a year at a one-room school in nearby Madison Township. When he was 22, declining an engineering scholarship from Washington & Jefferson College, he moved to Cleveland where he enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art (today known as the Cleveland Institute of Art).[3] Travis studied there for five years, where he became a protege of Henry Keller,[4] and also encountered fellow students Charles Burchfield and Frank N. Wilcox, all of whom later became acknowledged members of the Cleveland School. Travis remained friends with Burchfield and Wilcox,[5][6] and his artwork, particularly his watercolors,<?> was forever augmented by the teachings of Henry Keller.
After graduating in 1918, approximately a year after the United States entered World War I, Travis enlisted. A few months later he was sent to France, to a base outside Le Mans, where he trained as a machine gunner.[7] While he was in the process of being sent to the front one of his commanding officers, who had noted his artistic abilities and intelligence, transferred him to survey work. He spent most of the remainder of the war in Le Mans, but also traveled widely throughout France. After the war he was appointed as a teacher at the American Forces University of Beaune.[8]
When he returned from France <when?> he accepted a teaching position at the Cleveland School of Art, where he taught for 38 years.[9] He also began submitting his artwork to the May Show, an annual exhibition of local artists sponsored by the Cleveland Museum of Art.[10] In 1921, his first time submitting artwork,<?> he won first prize for an etching of the Chartres Cathedral.[11] <little overview of his May Show exploits...>
[12] <- May Show winnings.
[13] <- Kokoon profile/biography
In May 1920 Travis began exchanging letters with Marjorie Penfield, which continued until they were married on October 9, 1925.[14] During much of this period, while not teaching, he lived on the family farm in Wellsville. In his letters Travis rarely became romantic; he did speak of the difficulty of painting, especially large works, in between farm chores.[15]
In 1927, when Travis was 36 years old, [16]
While serving in France during the Second World War Travis produced over 160 sketches in small sketchbooks,[17] primarily of his fellow soldiers, as well as French towns and the surrounding countryside.[18] These he produced in a competent, though academic, style.<?>
As of June 2010, the Cleveland Museum of Art owns 71 pieces of art by Travis.[19]
Dan Tranberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer called Travis's work "some of the most historically significant art this city has ever produced." [20]