Arthur Kraft

Arthur Kraft was an American painter, muralist, and sculptor whose work was influenced by artistic movements like Realism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Expressionism. While Kraft experimented with artistic styles and subjects, his work is often identifiable because of his use of symbolism, whimsy and a skilled use of color. 

Kraft’s interest in art started early when at age thirteen he began taking art classes at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute briefly before he transferred to Yale University’s School of Fine Arts. Kraft’s education was interrupted while he served in World War II, but upon his return he graduated from Yale and was awarded the Alice Kimball English Fellowship for travel and study abroad.

In 1946, Kraft won the Audubon Artist Society national award for his humorously titled painting, New York as Seen by a Casual Observer Through My Great Aunt Jennifer’s Ouija Board. Kraft’s successes continued throughout the 1940s and 50s with a one-man exhibition at the Salon de Jean Cocteau, Paris; Jacques Seligmann & Company, New York; the Landau Galleries, Los Angeles, and with significant commissions of murals, sculpture, and stained glass. In 1954, Kraft was named by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce one of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men in America. During this period his commercial work also flourished with his illustrations appearing on the covers of Fortune, Time and other national magazines. In 1958, Kraft illustrated his longtime friend Lon Amick's widely acclaimed book, The Divine Journey: A Guide to Spiritual Understanding.

In 1959, Kraft was assaulted one evening and many cite this as a turning point in Kraft’s physical and mental health. Although supported by a wide network of friends, Kraft struggled with his finances and substance abuse for the remainder of his life, spending time in the Glore Psychiatric Hospital in St. Joseph, Missouri. He documented his experiences at Glore with harrowing drawings and poetic writings he published as a limited edition artist’s book, Sounds of Fury, "in the hope that those who view it can help to alter…” the suffering he witnessed while a patient.

Kraft spent most of his life in his hometown of Kansas City and was highly regarded, with Thomas Hart Benton reported to have said, “He has better technique than I do, if he’d only work harder at it.” His murals, sculptures, stained glass and paintings are in public places and homes throughout the city and the United States. His final work, before his death from cancer at the age of fifty-five in 1977, was a mural he created for the waiting room of the Veterans Hospital in Topeka, Kansas.

Kraft’s work and artistic legacy have been revisited in recent years with retrospective exhibitions at The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri in 2002, The Carter Art Center on the campus of the Metropolitan Community College, Kansas City, Missouri  in 2003, and the Glore Psychiatric Museum, 2020. In 2007, Betty Brand established the Arthur Kraft Memorial Scholarship for the Visual Arts at the Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to support students and continue Kraft’s artistic legacy.