Biography

Epilogue -- Krehbiel Lives On

Albert Henry Krehbiel passed away from a heart attack on June 29th, 1945, while preparing for a traveling and painting trip through Illinois and Kansas. His death occurred a few days after his retirement from teaching at the Illinois Institute of Technology, although he had agreed to stay on at The Art Institute of Chicago for one more year.

Throughout his life, Krehbiel remained a quiet man who had “little time for the mechanism of commercialism”. He had amassed an extensive and extremely diverse collection of work reflecting his contribution to, and interpretation of, the developmental stages of painting and drawing in the first half of the 20th century, leaving behind impressions that take one back to another time and era in history.

During his prolific career, Krehbiel’s works were shown in a multitude of exhibitions. In addition to those previously mentioned, Krehbiel’s lifetime resume of prominent exhibitions includes the following:

• The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (in 1923, 1928, and 1931)
• The Fiesta Exhibition of Paintings by Artists of New Mexico at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe (in 1923)
• The First Exhibition of the National Society of Mural Painters at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, (in 1925)
• A total of thirty-two exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago from 1906 to 1939

Krehbiel was a member of the Cliff Dwellers, Chicago Painters and Sculptors, Chicago Society of Artists, Chicago Watercolor Club, Mural Painters of New York, and the Chicago Galleries Association. In addition to his earlier honors and awards for painting, he won the Clyde Carr Prize, the Martin B. Cahn Prize for Best Painting, the American Artists Exhibit of Landscapes Award, the William Ormond Thompson Prize, and the Municipal Art League Prize for Landscapes.

Many of Krehbiel’s works are held in private collections throughout the world as well as in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M H. de Young Memorial Museum, DePaul University Art Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Dubuque Museum of Art in Dubuque, Iowa, the John Vanderpoel Art Association in Chicago, Illinois, and The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company in Fort Worth, Texas. Krehbiel has many works listed in the Smithsonian Institution Inventories of American Paintings and Sculpture and writings, personal letters, and selected archival material of Krehbiel’s are available on microfilm at the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art in Washington, DC, as well as at The Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson and Burnham Libraries. Books, articles, and writings on Krehbiel are available at fine art libraries throughout the country.