Tella Kitchen

Tella Kitchen (February 14, 1902 – June 21, 1988) was a folk artiste known for her paintings of landscapes and town energy in rural Indiana and Ohio. She was a self-taught artist, whose be in was based on her memories of her life. Her take steps achieved national recognition, and can be found in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum.

She was born Tella Denehue, on a little farm in the hills of Vinton County, Ohio, near the village of Londonderry, in next to Ross County, Ohio. Her father's family had immigrated to the United States from County Cork, Ireland; her mother's family was from Pennsylvania. During her childhood she moved bearing in mind her intimates to Indiana, where they settled on a little farm close Independence.

In 1920 she married Noland Kitchen (1895-1963), and the couple moved to the village of Adelphi, Ohio, where they raised four children. Noland Kitchen served as mayor of Adelphi; the Kitchens then operated a gas station, sold used cars, and farmed.

After her husband's death in 1963, Tella Kitchen succeeded him as mayor of Adelphi. At some tapering off during this times of her life, her son Denny gave her a paint set as a gift, and she began painting later than she was a propos 67 years old, drawing upon her memories of her childhood, and her experiences of rural and town life, including contemporary events.

Through the efforts of Denny Kitchen, the artist's son, her produce an effect came to the attention of the folk art historian Robert Bishop (1938-1991), then a curator at the Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan, and unconventional the director of the Museum of American Folk Art (since 2001 known as the American Folk Art Museum), in New York City; Bishop included Kitchen in his book Folk Painters of America (1979).