George Jo Mess (June 30, 1898 – June 24, 1962)
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mess had a very active art career as a painter, printmaker, commercial artist, and art educator. He is most known for his modernist style etchings of rural, mid-western landscapes and his impressionistic landscape paintings. In his lifetime, he exhibited nationally at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, and also abroad in Stockholm, Paris and Rome. His work is held in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Indiana Art Museum, among others.
Mess blended the endeavors in commercial art, fine art, and teaching throughout his life. In 1927, founded Circle Art Academy with his wife, Evelynn Mess, an artist and master printmaker, and his younger brother, Gordon Mess. In 1931, George Mess was awarded a fellowship from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation to study in New York. The Mess’ closed the Circle Art Academy in 1932 and continued to work together at the Circle Engraving Company to focus on commercial arts for the next five years. In 1937, the Mess’ relocated to Chicago where George took a position supervising artwork reproduction for prominent magazines such as Esquire, Coronet and Apparel Arts.
Due to George’s poor health, the Mess’ returned to Indiana in 1940 and for the next 20 years continued to create artwork and teach part-time at various institutions such as Purdue University, the Indianapolis Art League, the Herron Art League, the Old Mill Art School in the Adirondacks, and at a retreat created on their property near Nashville, T.N.