Talk:Joseph Fleck

Smithsonian plagiarized

[1] Indians at the Post Office: Native Themes in New Deal-Era Murals Smithsonian Institution , by Dylan Kitchell.

In 1892, the artist Joseph Amadeus Fleck was born in the village of Sziklos, within Austro-Hungary. Fleck studied lithography, etching, and engraving at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Institute of Applied Arts) and drawing and painting at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Academy of Fine Arts) in Vienna, Italy. “His primary instructors at the Akademie, Hans Tichi and Rudolph Bacher, were fringe members of the Vienna Secession led by Gustav Klimt.” ”

After World War I erupted in 1914, Fleck was drafted into the Italian Army and sent to the front lines. “Luckily for him, his artistic skills earned him an unofficial position as the regimental artist and, upon his return to Vienna after his first tour of duty, he was given a position painting patriotic images and portraits of notable government and military figures.” When the war came to an end, Fleck began to finish his studies at the Academy of Fine Art and then, several years later, he immigrated to the United States.

His first destination was Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked as the chief designer of Tiffany’s stained-glass operation there. The talented artist had opportunity to paint numerous portraits of prestigious personages around Kansas City, including the Mayor; all “before he attended an art exhibition that would forever change his life.” In the summer of 1924, Fleck visited Taos Society of Artists exhibition in Kansas City during his first visit to Taos. He seemed to enjoy either Taos or the exhibition so much that he moved there in 1925, bringing his newly-wedded wife Mabel Davidson Mantz. He apparently found love in just the right place when Mabel’s family connections aided Fleck’s art career in Kansas City and Fort Worth, Texas. “Eventually Fleck had a studio on La Loma, a neighborhood just west of Taos Plaza, where artists W. Herbert Dunton and Blanche Grant also lived.”

“When the Great Depression decreased tourist traffic to Taos, Fleck ‘resolved to go to the clients’ according to his son, Joseph Fleck Jr.” However, the oil industry was booming in Oklahoma and Texas, so this is where Mr. Fleck would travel for work. While finding work among those who would pay to have him, Joseph found a financial cushion on the Works Project Administration mural commissions in “Raton, New Mexico; Hugo, Oklahoma; and the New Mexico State Capitol at Santa Fe (never finished).” In the1940s, after using the WPA to his advantage, Fleck picked up a job for the University of Kansas City, now the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He also managed to find time to paint murals for the student union at UMKC that still hang there today. Later in the 1940s, Mr. Fleck decided to build a new studio in Talpa, a village south of Taos. His painting style at first was strict and often seen as having an “academic” approach; however, as time went by, it eventually became more relaxed developing into something more impressionistic in nature. His paintings included landscapes, portraits and life scenes of the Indians in various regions, using oil paints and pastels. In 1973, Fleck moved to Pleasanton, California and died there in 1977 at age 85.

Looks like very extensive exact quoting of a source at best. The problem here is that the article does not credit the author of the words at all. Nor does it credit Kitchell's sources. (Bolded text is an exact copy of the Smithsonian article). Collect (talk) 21:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Note: the copying was more extensive than is (correctly) reported above. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)