Karl Priebe

 ( 1914 Births ) 

Karl Priebe (July 1, 1914 – July 5, 1976) was an Americans painter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose studies and paintings of birds, exotic animals, and African-American culture won him national and international recognition.

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Biography Karl John Priebe was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Emil Priebe (1873–1949) and Catherine Wacker (1876–1955). He graduated from the Layton School of Art, where he studied under Gerrit V. Sinclair, before moving on to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which he graduated from in 1938. After serving on the anthropology staff of the Milwaukee Public Museum (1938–42) and as director of the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts (1943–44), he moved to New York City, becoming one of the few Wisconsin artists of his generation whose paintings were shown at major public and private galleries, among them the Museum of Modern Art.

While in Manhattan, Priebe befriended many artists, including photographer Carl Van Vechten, with whom he maintained a long correspondence. Vechten sent a number of his photographs to Priebe, including after the latter's return to Milwaukee. Priebe's collection of photographs by Van Vechten eventually amounted to 4,000 items.

Priebe drew the inspiration for his works from numerous locations. After he became an instructor at the Layton School of Art, his paintings of exotic animals brought him further recognition and can be attributed to his numerous trips to the Milwaukee County Zoo.

R. Richard Wagner (2025). 9780870209123, Wisconsin Historical Society Press. ISBN 9780870209123

He first became interested in African-American culture when, as an art student in Chicago, he taught a class in a settlement house largely attended by African Americans. His Black figures, he recalled later, were not intended as portraits, but were taken from his memories of people he saw in the settlement house. Throughout his creative life, Priebe was known for his love of Black culture. He was a longtime friend of jazz singers Billie Holiday and Pearl Bailey, writer Langston Hughes, painter Charles Sebree, and musician Dizzy Gillespie.

(1991). 9780913820155, Chicago Historical Society. ISBN 9780913820155

Peter C. Merrill (1997). 9780924119019, Friends of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies. . ISBN 9780924119019

Michael Snyder (2025). 9780197609729, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197609729

In 1941, Priebe was awarded the Rome Prize for Visual Arts by the American Academy in Rome, though, because of the onset of WWII, he was unable to use the grant to study in Europe. Along with painters Gertrude Abercrombie, John Wilde, Marshall Glasier, Dudley Huppler, and Sylvia Fein, he made up a loose group of artists known as the Wisconsin Magical realism.

Lisa Wainwright (2025). 9780932900982, Chazen Museum of Art. . ISBN 9780932900982

Garrett T. Caples (2025). 9781933517988, Wave Books. . ISBN 9781933517988

The last public exhibition of Priebe's works took place at Marquette University in February 1976, featuring over a hundred works.

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Personal life Priebe was Gay men.

Isabelle Dervaux (2025). 9781887149143, Hatje Cantz / National Academy Museum. ISBN 9781887149143

In 1944, Priebe had a brief romantic relationship with writer Owen Dodson.

James V. Hatch (1995). 9780252064777, University of Illinois Press. . ISBN 9780252064777

Between 1945 and 1955, he shared his life with New York writer Frank Roy Harriott.

In his later years Priebe suffered from a number of ailments. In November 1975, he had one of his eyes surgically removed, and his health began to decline. He died from cancer at his home in Milwaukee on July 5, 1976, at the age of 62.

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See also

• Marquette University Special Collections and University Archives

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External links

Archival collections

• Karl J. Priebe Papers in the Marquette University Archives

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