Paul Bough Travis (1891-1975) Over a period of 50 years, Paul Bough Travis, one of the most adventurous talents of the Cleveland School, produced a remarkable visual diary of his life.  From rural beginnings in Wellsville, Ohio, Paul Travis traveled to the "big city" of Cleveland in 1913 to study at the Cleveland School of Art.  The school's curriculum was strongly academic and stressed the importance of drawing, which became the backbone of Travis's artistic achievement for the rest of his career.  In 1927-28, when he was 36 years old, Travis embarked on an eight-month trip to Africa in search of a place whose landscapes, people, animals and vegetation hadn't been mined to death by generations of artists, or spoiled by the intrusion of western culture. His experiences would forever change his life and work. In 1930 his oil, My First View of the Congo Forest, was purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art, then a watercolor, Crater Lake, Rwanda, to the Brooklyn Museum.  In 1933 Travis’s painting, The Offering, Belgian Congo was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.  Travis also produced 100 large-scale photographs (lantern slides) now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  Travis lived and painted in Cleveland Heights and taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art for over 30 years. Even in his nearly abstract, symbolically charged paintings from the 1950s on, the impact of his African experience is still present in a boldness and intensity of color not found in any of his early efforts. Over 15 works from the family’s collection will be exhibited at the Gallery.  Click images to enlarge.

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