Description: arthurawidmer.com status: EXPIRED
He loved the land. And he loved to paint. Almost as much as he enjoyed people.
Wearing a red plaid shirt streaked with paint, the pocket bulging with pens and a barber’s comb, Arthur A. Widmer would set up his easel alongside a country road and paint the trees, barns and streams of his native Northeast Pennsylvania. His favorite scene was the Delaware Water Gap, a 200-ft. gorge that serves as the entrance to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. He used bold colors and broad strokes to capture the peace of that land over a life that spanned 94 years.
Barber, postal clerk, advertising manager and magician, he was known as Shorty to his friends, a generous spirit who would give demonstrations of his art, then give away the paintings. He’d paint the Gap from memory but head for the back roads in his VW bug to capture a still farmhouse, a silver waterfall, an ancient stone bridge. Occasionally he’d create a still life or the rare portrait, but always he’d return to the land he loved.