Ora Coltman

One of Cleveland’s most popular painters of the early 20th century, Ora Coltman worked in a representational style that featured broad areas of bright color. Born in Shelby, Ohio, he came to Cleveland in the early 1880s to study law but soon abandoned the field for a career in art. He subsequently secured a job as a designer at the Joseph Carabelli Monument Works, a local marble carving firm. In the mid-1880s he traveled to Europe and studied painting at the Académie Julian in Paris and at a private studio in Munich. On returning to America, he studied with William Merritt Chase at the Art...