Loraine Makimson

Loraine Makimson was a painter and printmaker who taught children's classes at the Kansas City Art Institute during the 1930s and 1940s. She worked for the Federal Art Project, documenting several historical objects in watercolor for the Index of American Design project. 

Loraine Sarah Makimson was born on April 6, 1898, in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated from Westport High School in 1915, where she studied with local artist Ada Rapp. 

Loraine Makimson won several scholarships to attend the Kansas City Art Institute in 1927. The next year, she won a residency scholarship from the Tiffany Foundation, enabling her to spend the summer painting at the foundation's art colony on Long Island, New York. 

After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute with a bachelor's of fine arts in painting in 1934, Loraine Makimson was hired to teach junior classes there. Every year, her classes of eight- to fourteen-year-olds learned advanced methods for drawing and painting, with frequent trips to the newly opened Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She became head of the Junior Department in 1941. 

Between 1935 and 1942, Loraine Makimson was hired by  the Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration. She participated in the Index of American Design Project, where 18,257 watercolor paintings of American folk objects were executed by approximately four hundred artists across the country. Makimson created six paintings of historic glass bottles, including whiskey and medicine bottles.

During her career, Loraine Makimson actively exhibited her work locally and nationally. She had solo exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, and the Denver Museum of Fine Art. She was best known for her watercolor landscapes and lithographic prints. 

Loraine Makimson died on June 26, 1947, from ovarian cancer, at forty-nine years old. Her work has been preserved in the Index of American Design Archives at the National Gallery of Art, where her paintings can be seen online.