Cleveland born Adam Lehr trained as a house and sign painter as a young man though soon gained more formal training under American painter Archibald Willard, a family friend and author of the famous The Spirit of ’76. In 1880 Lehr departed, with financial assistance from a local merchant, for New York where he studied at the Art Students League for a year. Returning to Cleveland in 1881 Lehr began exhibiting regularly at Cleveland’s Brush and Palette Club, the Watercolor Society, and the Cleveland Society of Artist’s. Known primarily as a still-life and landscape painter, he was a founder of the Cleveland Art Club, comprised of a group of prominent artists who taught at the Academy of Art. Lehr exhibited regularly throughout his life though often supplemented his income with commercial painting.
Greenwich Gallery, CT., until 1996
Private collection, Greenwich, CT., 1996 to present