Paul Chidlaw

Paul Chidlaw
Paul Chidlaw 1922 (painting by Wilbur G. Adam)
Born	April 5, 1900 Cleves, Ohio
Died	April 25, 1989(1989-04-25) (aged 89) Cincinnati, Ohio
Nationality	American
Education	Art Academy of Cincinnati; L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Fountainbleau, France
Known for	Abstract painting; Abstract Expressionist; art teacher

Paul Chidlaw (1900–1989) was an American painter and art instructor who spent most of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Paul Chidlaw was born in Cleves, Ohio on April 5, 1900 to Edward H. and Carolyn Guise Chidlaw. He resided in Cincinnati for the majority of his life. He was obsessed with the art world since the age of eight when he would get clay from the fields and creeks to make ceramics. When he was growing up in Cincinnati his aunts would take him to the Cincinnati Art Museum and they would point out the "finished" and "unfinished" works. The Frank Duveneck paintings were "unfinished."

He studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1919 to 1923.

In 1927, after working as a designer for commercial firms in Cincinnati for several years, he travelled to France and studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau. He later moved to Paris and studied with Jean Despujols and Andre L'Hote. Chidlaw found that his formal academic art training was restrictive. In 1989 while reflecting on his studies in France, Chidlaw remarked: "Because of my academic training, my painting was rather reserved. I was always trying to imitate nature. I wasn't as free. I was more less in a box." Not having yet achieved renown as an artist himself, Chidlaw had to finance his stay in Paris by finding employment in a foreign exchange section at a banker’s trust.

After travelling extensively in Europe, Chidlaw lived in Morocco for a year.

Chidlaw returned to Cincinnati in 1935 and taught and painted various commissions including Works Progress Administration (WPA) murals under the Federal Art Project. During World War II, he served in the US Army Engineers.

He taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1947 until his retirement in 1963.

After retirement, he taught drawing and painting in a studio in the Rookwood Building in Mount Adams from 1964 to 1977, when he was appointed artist-in-residence at Edgecliff College. In 1979 Edgecliff awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Towards the end of his life, his eyesight failed due to macular degeneration but he then turned to music to inspire his final abstract paintings.