John von Wicht German-American, 1880-1970

Born in 1888, John Von Wicht studied at the Private Art School of the Grand Duke of Hesse and at the Royal School for Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin, later apprenticing in a painting and decorative design shop. Settling in New York in 1923 he worked for a lithography company later joining a firm making stained glass and mosaics, gaining significant insight to designs, forms, and methods that would later inform his abstract paintings. With sufficient connections and skill von Wicht soon opened his own studio in Brooklyn with an office in Manhattan to secure private commissions.

 As a muralist in the 1930s his style ranged from abstract to semi-abstract, sometimes cubist inspired, painting murals for WNYC radio and the New York World's Fair. He exhibited widely through the mid to late 1930s and, in 1941, mounted an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, cementing his reputation as an abstract painter.

 Von Wicht continued to exhibit frequently through the 40s 50s and 60s, mounting numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York and nationally and was invited to join the American Abstract Artists and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. Von Wicht died of pneumonia on January 20th, 1970.