Cornelia A. Kuemmel

Cornelia Kuemmel was a sculptor and painter active in Missouri from 1883 until 1938. She was born in St. Louis and moved to Glasgow in central Missouri with her family as a child, where she lived most of her life.  

Kuemmel was a lifelong teacher. She attended the Pritchett School Institute in Glasgow and began teaching there in 1883, along with a teaching post at Lewis College in Glasgow beginning in 1884. 

She returned to St. Louis to attend the St. Louis School of Fine Arts from 1891 to 1895, studying with John Fry and Edmund Wuerpel. As a student, Kuemmel participated in the St. Louis School of Fine Arts exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, in which she won an award, and later in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. She was awarded a scholarship to study abroad in Paris, but refused the award and returned to Glasgow.

Kuemmel was an active exhibitor and participated in the St. Louis Exhibition and Music Hall Association throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Her work was shown at the St. Louis City Art Museum in 1896, 1897 and 1898, the St. Louis Exposition in 1899, and the Women’s Art League in 1908. Her accolades included first prize at the St. Louis Exhibition and Music Hall Association in 1886, the Wayman Crow Medal of the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, and an award for best work in the Saturday Sketch Class at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. 

Despite her artistic achievements, Kuemmel rarely sold her work and remained relatively unacclaimed during her lifetime. She left behind 320 finished pieces, one of which, Glasgow, Missouri, was acquired by the State Historical Society of Missouri in 1944. She died in 1938.