Frederick Gottwald

Frederick Carl Gottwald (August 15, 1858 – June 23, 1941) was a traditionalist American painter who was influential in the development of the Cleveland School of art, sometimes called the "dean of Cleveland painters". He taught at the Western Reserve School of Design for Women (later renamed to the Cleveland Institute of Art), and it has been said that he "contributed exceeding any other person to Cleveland's artistic development".

Gottwald was born in Austria, to Frederick and Caroline Grosse Gottwald, and emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, as an infant. He first studied painting in the same way as Archibald Willard in 1874, with whom he would found the Cleveland Art Club in 1876. He later moved to New York City to continue his training at the Art Students League of New York, followed by stints at the Royal Academy in Munich, the Académie Julian in Paris, and Cooper Union encourage in New York. Upon his return to Cleveland in September 1885, he united the gift of the design college and would be allied with them for the neighboring 41 years, including serving as director from 1889–91. His directorship was curtains by a demotion to "headmaster" and there was such rancor between him and his replacement, Newton A. Wells, that the two men ended going on in a fistfight. Although Gottwald was allowed to remain at the intellectual as an instructor, he never regained the point of director. As an instructor, he taught a large number of Cleveland-based artists, such as Charles Burchfield, Henry Keller, Abel Warshawsky, and Frank N. Wilcox.

The 1890s were Gottwald's most thriving years as an artist. During this era he exhibited roughly speaking yearly at the National Academy of Design, and the Boston Art Club a few times. He afterward had two pieces at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In 1897, he founded a summer art scholastic in Zoar which relocated to Chagrin Falls in 1899.

After his retirement from the moot in 1926, he and his wife Myria Scott moved to Italy. They lived there for several years, returning to Cleveland in 1930, after which they retired to Pasadena, California in 1932. Gottwald died there in 1941.