22 Facts About Frank Nuderscher

Frank Bernard Nuderscher was an American illustrator, muralist, and painter of the American Impressionism style.

Frank Nuderscher was called the "dean of St Louis artists" for his leadership in the Missouri art community.

Frank Nuderscher's father wanted him to join the family business, but Nuderscher always had an interest in art.

Legend has it that Frank Nuderscher finally convinced his father to support his aspirations when at age 12 he earned two dollars sketching a bas-relief for a stonemason, therefore convincing his father that he could earn a living as an artist.

Frank Nuderscher is frequently credited for being self-taught as an artist.

In 1904, Frank Nuderscher first attracted the attention of the fine arts community with his painting of the Eads Bridge which won first prize in the Artist's Guild Competition.

Early is his career, Frank Nuderscher did more illustration work than he did later in his career when his reputation as a painter allowed him to focus primarily in the fine arts.

Frank Nuderscher captured industrial scenes, streetscapes, and monuments of urban progress such as the Eads Bridge.

Frank Nuderscher painted structures without sharply defined outlines and his tonalistic style conveyed the smoky air, filtered sun, and misty haze of the industrial city.

Sometime after 1910, Frank Nuderscher discovered that his ability to paint the subtleties of the urban atmosphere lent itself to depicting the hazy air, fog, and light that was characteristic of the hills and valleys of the Ozark Mountains.

Frank Nuderscher so loved painting in the Ozarks that he purchased a house in Arcadia, Missouri and moved his family there.

The Frank Nuderscher family spent most of the 1920s in Arcadia, and Frank Nuderscher even served as the village's mayor.

Frank Nuderscher continued to paint both urban St Louis and the rural Arcadian Valley and saw no conflict in exhibiting them together.

Frank Nuderscher paintings are in the collections of the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri History Museum, the Missouri Governor's Mansion, the National Park Service Museum of Westward Expansion, the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri, the St Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri - St Louis, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Saint Louis University Museum of Art.

Frank Nuderscher sketched a few different designs for the project before deciding on one of his favorite subjects, the Eads Bridge.

Frank Nuderscher painted murals all over the United States including in New York City, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

Frank Nuderscher remained in high demand as a muralist, particularly in Missouri, where he created works in banks, schools, museums, and in private place mansions.

In 1955, one of Frank Nuderscher's murals made national headlines with regard to the Civil Rights Movement.

In light of the controversy of racial integration in St Louis public schools, Frank Nuderscher volunteered to repaint two of the children in the mural to be African-American and thus integrate the mural in a symbolic act.

Frank Nuderscher was the last surviving artist of the Riverfront Art Colony in St Louis.

Frank Nuderscher was a member of the National Society of Mural Painters, the St Louis Artist Guild, was president of the Independent Artists of St Louis, and was the state chairman of the American Artists Professional League.

Frank Nuderscher was the founder and director of the Frank Nuderscher School of Art in St Louis, the Ozark School of Art in Arcadia, and ran a summer school in Kimmswick, Missouri.