Grandview Heights resident, artist, and teacher Harriet (Rhoads) Kirkpatrick (1877-1962) grew up in Columbus with her four brothers, next door to nationally-acclaimed realist painter, George Bellows. After graduation from Columbus Central High School, Kirkpatrick began her art studies at Columbus Art School. She exhibited her first painting in Chicago in 1910, and entered “Evening in Gloucester Harbor” in her first New York Art League show in 1913. She married William Kirkpatrick in 1913, and they moved into this home on Westwood Avenue the same year. The home was built in 1911–1912.

From 1913 to 1914, Kirkpatrick was the art critic for The Ohio State Journal. In 1921, she founded the Ohio State Fair Art Exhibition and remained its director until 1927. When her husband died unexpectedly in 1922, Kirkpatrick, left with daughter Jean to raise on her own, began teaching privately at Columbus School for Girls (CSG) to supplement her income as an artist. She was head of the CSG Art Department from 1923 to 1946. A founding member of the Columbus Art League, and a continuous exhibitor until her death, Kirkpatrick in 1953 received the League’s medallion of “Distinguished Service in the Arts.” In Columbus, she founded the Shedd Art Gallery at Players Club, the Bryson Gallery, the Z. L. White Gallery, and the Children's Room in the Columbus Museum of Art.

During her lifetime, Mrs. Kirkpatrick studied extensively with some of the masters of her generation, traveled and painted in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and from coast to coast in the United States, gained national recognition, and exhibited widely with honors.

Kirkpatrick’s art was included in the exhibit “Breaking Tradition; Ohio Women Painters, 1870-1950,” which was shown in various Ohio locations in 2005 and 2006. In 2012, she was one of more than 50 artists from central Ohio acclaimed in the “100 Years of Art: Celebrating Columbus Legacy" exhibit displayed at the Riffe Gallery in downtown Columbus. Her work has been frequently displayed at the Keny Galleries in nearby German Village, OH.

Her favorite activity was painting outdoors, using a style that blended naturalistic drawing with an impressionistic palette of brilliant color. In her later years, she moved toward increasingly condensed form and intense color. Her work over time shows the influence of the American Modernist movement.

Kirkpatrick’s two grandchildren Sally (Diehl) Kriska and Pete Diehl lived in the Westwood Avenue home with their grandmother and their parents. Interestingly, the home has only ever been owned by the Kirkpatrick family since being built. Kriska and her husband have owned the home from 1992 to the present.

For reminiscences from Kirkpatrick on her friendship with artist George Bellows, see Pages 4 and 5 of the Society’s 2013 Tour of Homes brochure:

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/p16802coll30/id/62/rec/15

Kirkpatrick (circa 1900) in a locket portrait.

Kirkpatrick in later years (photo by Columbus Dispatch, Arthur Greenspan).

Kirkpatrick’s painting of the family’s Westwood Ave. home.

Painting of Paris by Kirkpatrick completed before World War II; during the war, she had her students enlarge the painting as a mural for the Columbus United Services Organization (USO).

Edna Stone

Diane Hennacy Powell

Theresa Cincione

Harriet Kirkpatrick

Helen Winnemore

Blanche Field

Jenny Klitch

Mertie Bennett Smith

Anna Dodge Dillman