Biography
George Adams Dietrich was born in Borden, IN, a little north of Louisville, KY. He studied at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee from 1924-1927 and married Bettina Babcock, a fellow student at Layton who painted, sculpted and wrote poetry. Dietrich sculpted limestone figures for the Boerner Botanical Garden just outside of Milwaukee, using his wife as a model.
Dietrich was a Professor of Sculpture and Painting at the University of Michigan School of Architecture for the year of 1937-1938 and received a commission for the Lake Geneva, WI Post Office mural in 1940. He was an instructor in industrial design at the Milwuakee School of Engineering from 1942-1943, before entering the U.S. Navy, where he served until 1946.
After the war Dietrich became a Professor in Art Education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he taught from 1946-1953, after which he set up a studio in Milwaukee. He worked in Milwaukee for over a decade, after which he moved to Madison, FL, where he had an association with the North Florida Junior College.
Critical Analysis
Dietrich was a versatile artist with a career that touched upon painting, sculpture, design and teaching. His work can be found in California, Illinois, Maryland, Texas and Washington. Examples of his work show a pleasant touch with an inclination toward representational art.
Murals
- Lake Geneva, Wisconsin - Post Office: Winter Landscape
References
- Patrick Quinn, The best art in Lake Geneva that you may have never seen, Lake Geneva News December 25 (2021).
- Biography of George Adams Dietrich (art price).
- Peter C. Merrill, German-American artists in early Milwaukee : a biographical dictionary. Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies , Madison, WI (1997).
- David W. Gates Jr., A Journey to Our Post Office Murals, Northwest Quarterly March 4 (2020).