Orlando Gray Wales

Orlando Gray Wales (also O.G. Wales; 1865 – December 30, 1933)^[1] was an American landscape painter and Pennsylvania impressionist who lived and painted in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. Wales was considered to be one of the best still-life artists of his day.^[2][3]

City street with figures, a portrait by Wales

Early life and education

Wales was born in Philadelphia in 1865.^{[citation needed]} He studied with William Merritt Chase and Alphonse Mucha at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.^[3][4]

Career

Wales first exhibited in 1912 at the studio of fellow painter and photographer Arlington Nelson Lindenmuth. His painting was one of the first 110 works acquired and exhibited by the Allentown Art Museum upon its opening in 1936.^{[citation needed]}

He maintained an art studio at Tenth and Hamilton streets in Allentown.^[2]

As a teacher, his students included John E. Berninger, and Clarence I. Dresibach.^[5][6] Wales maintained a lifelong friendship with illustrator, painter, and printmaker Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer,^[2][4] who was also raised in Allentown and also studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She was the executer of Wales estate after his death in 1933.^[7]