George W. Kieffer

George Kieffer, born in Pierce City, Missouri, in 1905, was a self-taught artist who painted in the impressionistic style. His interest in art began when he started to draw as a child. His parents bought his first oil paint set at a hardware store in Pierce City. The family moved to Springfield, Missouri, when Kieffer was ten years old. He graduated from Central High School in Springfield.

To earn his living, Kieffer painted scenery and backdrops for stage productions, billboards and advertising displays. He also made decorative paintings in homes of food, flowers, and other scenes. Kieffer loved to paint the scenery of the Ozarks, and made many landscape paintings and still lifes in oil, watercolor and acrylic.

By the 1950s, Kieffer was painting public murals around the Springfield area at hospitals, theaters, banks and restaurants. These murals include: The Bountiful Ozarks (Union National Bank, 1951); The Story of Medicine (Burge-Protestant Hospital, 1952), and Helping Hands (Cox Medical Center, 1956); Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me (St. Paul’s Methodist Church sanctuary); The Story of Science (Pearson Hall, Drury University). Other murals were done at Missouri State University’s Carrington Hall; Greene County Courthouse; the Garden Room at Heer’s Department Store; Landers Theatre; and Silver Dollar City in Branson.

Kieffer also had a contract to paint murals for the Fox Theatre company, and made murals in theaters in Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois and New Mexico. He also worked as a freelance art restorer for the Robertson Gallery in Springfield.

George Kieffer died on February 1, 1981.