Kitt George Sapp

Kitt George Sapp was born on November 20, 1887. He first expressed an interest in art in elementary school, but when he was in his teens, he left school to begin working. Sapp worked for most of his life as a house painter and decorator. He was almost forty years old when he began formal art training, beginning his studies with Ilah Marian Kibbey during the 1930s. In 1939 he studied at the Kansas City Art Institute with Thomas Hart Benton. Sapp also enrolled in classes at the Colorado Springs Art Center and at the University of Kansas City, where he studied with Joseph A. Fleck, in a class for amateur painters. Additionally, he participated in artist colonies located in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sapp’s works were exhibited widely throughout the Midwest, including one of his paintings from the 1945 exhibition at the Joslyn Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, that was on display there for a year in 1946. In 1947, he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Kansas City Stock Exchange, and in 1951, his paintings were accepted into an exhibition of Midwestern artists at the Downtown Gallery in New York City. Sapp was a member of several art organizations in the Kansas City area and nationally.  He was also involved with the Kansas City Art Institute Alumni, which he served as vice president in 1953.

In his work, Sapp painted many scenes in Jackson County, including the Truman Farm Home in Grandview, Missouri, and the Truman Home in Independence, Missouri. His early works were representational in style, but later in his career his paintings became more abstract, some inspired by listening to music.

Kitt George Sapp died on October 8, 1959.