John Stockton de Martelly (1903–1979) was a twentieth-century American lithographer, etcher, painter, illustrator, teacher and writer.

Early life

John de Martelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1903 in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Florence, Italy, as well as the Royal College of Art in London. In the 1930s and 1940s, he taught printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute to the same students who studied painting with Thomas Hart Benton.

Works

De Martelly became a close friend of Benton, and was influenced by his Regionalist style. When Benton was fired from the Art Institute, the Board of Governors offered de Martelly Benton's job as head of the Painting Department. De Martelly was furious and quit. De Martelly's lithographs, sold through the Associated American Artists Galleries in New York in the 1930s and 1940s, captured the essence of the rural American landscape. In 1943, de Martelly began teaching at Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he was named artist-in-residence in 1946. By the late 1940s, de Martelly abandoned Regionalism for Abstract Expressionism and closely studied Daumier.

Death

He died at the age of sevventy-six in Okemos, Michigan in 1979.

Collections