Richard Kenah (1907-1982)

Richard Kenah

Biography

Richard Hay Kenah was born in New Brighton, PA in 1907. He was noted for his athleticism in high school, running track and playing basketball. He graduated from New Brighton High School in 1924 and went on to attend Antioch College. After Antioch he went to study art at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, graduating in 1932.

The Depression was already in full swing, and jobs were scarce, so Kenah sought funding under the Public Works of Art Project, gaining a commission to paint three murals at the Ambridge (PA) High School. He built a studio in his parents house to hold these large works. One depicted the people of the Harmony Scoiety, followers of Father Rapp; a second showed George Washington's travels in Western Pennsylvania at the start of the French and Indian War; and the third depicted industry of Western Pennsylvania. The murals were installed in 1934. The Harmony Society mural was restored in 2003 and moved to Old Economy Village, where it forms the centerpiece of their Visitors Center. The industrial mural was removed at some point, and its whereabouts are unknown. There remains the George Washington mural, which today is languishing behind a heating and air conditioning unit in what is now the Center for Hope.

Kenah was very active in the local art scenes of Pittsburgh and Beaver County, exhibiting his work freqquently throughout the 1930s. In 1935 he was Director of the Art Studio at the Music and Art Center of Beaver County. He exhibited a watercolor in Chicago in 1936 in addition to his local exhibitions.

In 1936 Kenah was hired by the Westmoreland Homesteads, one of many new communities created under New Deal programs. His nominal job was to edit the community newspaper, but he also gave art lessons and painted a mural for the Homesteads Dairy Lunch. That mural survives thanks to the efforts of a local mortician; it now hangs in the Jay A. Hoffer Funeral Home.

In 1938 multiple works of Kenah were shown at the Carnegie Galleries. Kenah completed his first Post Office mural - for Louisburg, NC - in 1939. He became Director of the Federal Art Project for the District of Columbia the same year, and painted a second Post Office mural - for Bridgeport, OH - in 1940. His paintings were exhibited in Montreal in 1940, and he married Elizabeth Heaton in 1941. He had a show in Washington in 1941 that year, and completed his third Post Office mural - for Bluefield, VA - in 1942.

During World War II Kenah worked for the Army Quartermaster Corps, where he designed displays of military hardware. After the war he commenced a long career with the U.S. Geological Survey, where he organized the Exhibitions Divison. He was given a Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Interior for his contributions to the Geological Survey. He retired in 1970.

During the time the Kenah worked in Washington, he designed and built a modern house in Accokeek, MD (1950). The house is a reflection of Kenah's multiple skills. In addition to being a painter and illustrator, he was also a woodworker and a designer. Kenah died in Accokeek in 1982.

Gold Assayers

Critical Analysis

Kenah's "Coal Mining" mural for Bluefield, VA shows an architect's sensibility with different levels of the mining operation shown in what amounts to a cutaway view of the mine. His interest in design and planning is illustrated by his inclusion in the painting not only the laborers in the mine, but also the architects and engineering mapping out next stages of the mine's expansion. There is a lot going on in this painting, but it doesn't seem at all crowded or busy - just an accurate reflection of a busy industrial site. And Kenah reminds the viewer that a mine is a strategic asset (this was 1942, after all) by showing a soldier stationed at the mine's entrance.

Murals