Otto Stark

Otto Stark, the Hoosier Group artist with the most Impressionistic painting style, was also the group’s most multifaceted artist. Throughout his career at the turn of the 19th century, he completed various illustrations, murals, and prints. Stark was born in Indiana into a family of cabinet makers and hoped to build organs, but began studying lithography after an injury that prevented him from pursuing carpentry. He went on to study fine arts in Ohio, New York, and eventually Paris. Unlike most Hoosier Group artists, Stark never studied in Germany; instead, his time in Paris may account for his comparatively loose brushstrokes and vibrant color palette, qualities associated with the French Impressionists. In Paris, Stark was selected to exhibit in the prestigious Paris Salon and, in the same year, met his wife Marie. The couple would soon move to New York City. After five years of marriage Marie passed away, leaving Stark a single parent of four children. Stark moved his family to Indianapolis where he made a living as a high school administrator and art teacher. Upon retiring, Stark painted full-time, often deviating from the Hoosier Group’s regular subject—the Indianian landscape—in favor of depictions of families, often including many children.