Artistic Decorations on Antique Chairs

Camp chairs have enamel sketches on their backing. Some of these sketches are VERY cool.  

In 2016, we'd like to repaint the chairs, but preserve the priceless images.

When Kurt Klingbeil was youth minister at New York’s Calvary Baptist Church, members of his Manhattan youth group painted these images.  Specifically, Sid Couchey completed the image of Carol as a toddler in a dress, holding a teddy bear.  And he signed that painted chair.

 

Sid Couchey was developing as a cartoonist in Manhattan.  He was enrolled in the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (which since 1956 has been called the School of the Visual Arts http://www.sva.edu)

and 

also developed a strong relationship with Kurt.

Couchey worked in New York on print backgrounds for the Lassie, Big Town and Howdy Doody TV tie-in books in the early 1950’s. His first complete work was published in Hoot Gibson #6; several of his illustrated stories appear in Heroic Comics, published by Famous Funnies. You might recall him as a lead artist / principle illustrator for the 1950's Harvey Comics, with characters of Richie Rich, Little Lotta & Little Dot.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Couchey

https://artlyst.com/news/sid-couchey-little-lotta-and-richie-rich-illustrator-dies-aged-92

Check out the watercolor sketch of Kurt completed by Sid Couchey, perhaps when Kurt was about 25-years-old in 1953.  

It hangs at the staircase at camp.  The time from sketch to our discovery in Kurt & Lois’ basement exceeds fifty years.