Joseph Amadeus Fleck

Joseph A. Fleck was a painter who was most closely associated with the Taos art colony in New Mexico, but also spent considerable time in Missouri. While working in Missouri, he made portraits, landscapes and murals. 

His interest in art began during his childhood in Austria, and as a teenager, he was apprenticed with an ornamental engraver. He began studying art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. After World War I began, Fleck was drafted into the Austrian army, where he became the unofficial regiment artist, and later in the war became an official government artist, assigned to paint war scenes and important government figures. At the end of the war, Fleck re-enrolled at the Royal Academy and studied painting under Friederich Bacher and Franz Tichi, and etching with S. Schwartz. Fleck completed his studies in 1920.

In May 1922, Fleck immigrated to the United States and arrived in Kansas City, Missouri. His friend Conrad Hug, who was a Kansas City art and frame dealer, helped Fleck get a job with the Tiffany stained glass factory in Kansas City, where Fleck became the chief designer. During his time in Kansas City, Fleck started his painting career and began painting portraits. Fleck also presented a painting, An American Mother, to the Kansas City Public Library.

In 1924 Fleck first saw paintings from Taos, New Mexico, at an exhibition at the Conrad Hug Gallery in Kansas City.  Profoundly impacted by the exhibition, Fleck traveled to Taos the same year, meeting the artists E. Martin Hennings, Ernest L. Blumenschein, Oscar E. Beringhaus and Bert G. Phillips. Fleck briefly returned to Kansas City to exhibit his Taos paintings before moving to Taos in 1925.

While in New Mexico, Fleck also participated in the 48 States Competition, sponsored by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts program from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He received commissions to paint murals for the post offices in Raton, New Mexico, and Hugo, Oklahoma. In Raton, Fleck’s 1936 post office murals depicted the First Mail Crossing Raton Pass and Unloading the Mail at Raton. In Hugo, he painted a mural in 1937 titled Choctaw Indians See the First Mail Coach.

Fleck returned to Kansas City in 1942 to work as the artist in residence at the University of Kansas City. In 1943 he was appointed Dean of the School of Fine Arts and held both positions until 1946. In 1946, while at the university, Fleck painted a mural titled Campus Scenes, 1943-1944 on the third floor of Haag Hall. During this time Fleck met Thomas Hart Benton, and his painting style became more impressionistic, incorporating brighter colors and bold brush strokes.

After his residency ended, Fleck returned to Taos, where he became active in different artists organizations. He was the president of the Taos Artists Association from 1947 to 1949. Additionally he gave lectures on art to the community.