This week family members of Floyd Gahman graciously donated one of Gahman’s paintings to the Wells County Historical Society and Museum and the Wells County Public Library. This particular painting is of the Erie Stone Quarry in 1934, and was likely done on Gahman’s summer visits back to the Wells County area. The painting will eventually be on display at the museum and might visit the library on occasion.
Pictured are Jason Habegger (library), Chris Gahman, Steven Lee Montgomery, Nancy Neel, Alison Ingram (granddaughter of Floyd Gahman), and Thomas Liby (museum). Chris, Steven, and Nancy are all cousins of Alison Ingram.
Floyd Gahman was a 1913 graduate of BHS and was from the Craigville area. He was a noted American landscape and building artist who specialized in oil paintings of the New England and mid-Atlantic area, after he moved to New York City. He exhibited his paintings at the Allied Artists in 1930, 1936-40, and 1942; the National Academy of Design each year from 1932-1943; and the World’s Fair in 1939. Some of his notable paintings include “Cold Spring Road” (1932) that is on display the Smithsonian American Art Museum and “The Quarry” which is on display in the Earth and Mineral Science Museum at Pennsylvania State University. He also has a painting titled “Winter Afternoon” (1955) at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. His painting “Along the Wabash,” which featured the covered bridge over the Wabash River was awarded the Landscape Prize by the New York Salmagundi Club and was featured in a January 22, 1942, article in the Bluffton News Banner.
Gahman married Ruth Louise Leyse in 1924 and had one child, Phyllis. Gahman also served in both World War I and World War II as a war pilot and passed away in 1979.