Chester J. Tingler, Evening Music, oil on wood, 24 1/2 by 30 3/4 inches.
An important Miami artist-muralist, Chester Tingler was born in Sweden and grew up in Buffalo, New York, where at the age of eighteen, his drawings for the Albright Art Gallery won him a one-year art scholarship. After further study at the Art Students’ League in New York City, Tingler was employed for some years as scenic and costume designer for Broadway shows produced by Ziegfeld, the Schubert’s, and Winthrop Ames. In 1917 he received the Mrs. Harry Paine Whitney award for mural painting. Tingler did the advertising art for Charlie Chaplin’s first movies.
Chester J. Tingler, watercolor, 15 1/4 by 21 3/4 inches. Signed lower left.
Tingler moved to Miami in 1922. During the Depression he was employed by the Works Progress Administration and the Florida Arts Project as supervisor of the mural art project for the Miami district. In 1933 Tingler won a contest to paint a mural for the Century of Progress in Chicago, the subject, Andrew Jackson receiving Florida for the United States, was to be later hung in the state-house in Tallahassee.
Chester J. Tingler, mural for Miami High School, Miami Herald, January 17, 1937,
In 1937 Tingler designed a huge mural for the library at Miami High School. The painting, measuring 10 by 41 feet, was completed by eight WPA artists under Tingler’s direction.* Students at Miami High posed for the painting that depicts students at work in school, in the background, positions they may take as adults. The canvas, said to be the largest ever painted in Florida, was presented by the school’s Parent Teachers Association, to the greater Miami community on the night of January 15, 1937 in Bayfront Park. The evening featured the Miami Symphony orchestra, the high school band, the girl’s and boy’s glee clubs, a ballet by eight high school girls, and an American Opera contralto just returned from Europe. *Artist Allie Mae Kitchens is pictured assisting Tingler in the Miami Herald, March 21, 1937.
Chester Tingler putting finishing touches on the mural for Miami High School, Miami Daily News, March 21, 1937.
In 1938 Tingler submitted a proposal to the WPA for the Sylvester, Georgia Post Office. In 1940, twenty-three of his oil paintings made a circuit tour of Florida as part of the Florida Art Project (FAP) of the WPA. Don J. Emery, director of the FAP in Daytona Beach, reviewed Tingler’s exhibit at his center in the Daytona Beach Sunday News Journal, February 18, 1940, “Tingler’s paintings present the Florida scene in a vigorous, direct, and simple manner. He has avoided those qualities generally described by critics as ‘sweet’ and ‘chromoish,’ so often characteristic of exhibits of Florida landscapes. ‘Mangrove Mystery,’ one of the largest canvases, is rich in color and possesses some of that mystic quality characteristic of subtropical Florida. ‘Two Riders,’ ‘Dairy Farm’ and ‘Relaxation’ are intensely interesting as examples of Mr. Tingler’s more progressive painting.”
The Key West Citizen, April 2, 1940, said of his work, “Scenes of Florida in a direct and simple manner, avoiding the usual ‘sweet’ landscapes are included in the exhibition, pictures, all painted during the last five years. Showing the change from conservative to a more progressive expression. Mr. Tingler achieves a much greater depth of plastic feeling in his more recent works.” When the exhibit reached Bradenton in July, Ralph McKelvey who played an important role in art development in Florida reviewed the exhibit. “This important show…open to the public for two full weeks… including paintings that in color and form transcend the realistic, lead the observer into realms of understanding esthetically far above the level of accorded representational pictures…in these paintings Tingler attains one of the true objectives of art, instilling a thought in the mind of the observer by a play of color and mass unobstructed by regard for detail.”
Chester J. Tingler, watercolor-gouache, 14 1/4 by 20 inches. Sighed lower left.
Later Tingler did murals for the Clewiston Airport, the Shenandoah Junior High, (1946) and Ponce de Leon High School. Tingler was named Artist of the Year in 1944-1945 by the Miami Women’s Club and the American Artists Professional League. He was an art instructor with the Terry Art Institute and a regular exhibitor at the Mirell Gallery in Coconut Grove, the Washington Art Galleries of Miami Beach, and with Arthur Ackerman and Low, of London, New York, and Chicago.
Tingler’s son Chester S. Tingler was a noted Marathon in the Florida Keys land developer and Miami boat designer, who won the Columbus Day Regatta off Elliot Key in Biscayne Bay in 1958. That year, after 36 years as a well-known Miami artist, Tingler moved to Marathon where he died in 1966 at the age of 80. His obituary in the Miami Herald (September 30, 1966) noted, “As a teenager he used to deliver art supplies from his father’s shop to the Albright Galleries. He got his start as a painter when one of the Albright instructors recommended him for a career in that field…He painted more than 30 murals for hotels and schools in this area and was the winner of 27 first prizes during his active career.”
Born: Sweden. Education: Albright Art Galleries, Buffalo, New York; Buffalo Art Students League; Art Students League, New York City; with Frank Vincent Dumond; William Merritt Chase. Membership: Tropical League of Fine Arts; Miami Art League; Florida Federation of Art; Florida Artist Group; Palm Beach Art League; Society of The Four Arts; Associated Artists of Miami. Exhibits: Art Students’ League, New York, June 1906, second prize, advanced composition; Art Students’ League, New York, June 1907, New York scholarship for work in Men’s Life Class; Tropical League of Fine Arts, Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, January 15, 1924, Egyptian Batik, Spanish Panel Batik, Egyptian; Miami Women’s Club, 1st and 2nd Annual Artists’ Salons, February 1929, 1930; Florida Federation of Art, 3rd Annual Exhibit, 1930, honorable mention; Miami Woman’s Club, February 1933, “two striking murals”; Art Institute of Miami, Biltmore Hotel, 1933, Waiting, Tropic Lure; Bayfront Park, out-door group exhibit, Miami, February 23-24, 1934; Art Institute of Miami, 2nd Annual, March 1934, The New Dress and After the Hurricane; Community Art Center, 126 Alcazar avenue, and 126 Alhambra circle, Coral Gables, May 6, 1934; Miami Federal Galleries, in old post office, April 1936, elimination judging for First National Exhibit of American Art in New York City, Real Men; Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, 2nd Annual, April 1937, Modern Classic Vision; Miami Federal Galleries, 2nd floor, old Miami Post Office, mural, Miami as Tourist and Aviation Center, for Bayfront Park Bandshell; Washington Art Gallery, Miami Beach, one man show, 1940; Florida Art Project, Works Project Administration, state wide tour of twelve Florida Federal Galleries, 1940, including Mangrove Mystery; Song of the Wind, Line Rhythms, Christmas Eve, Youth; Two Riders; Dairy Farm and Relaxation; Washington Art Gallery, Miami Beach, May 1943, Red Roses, Royal Poinciana; Associate Artists, Biscayne Blvd. August 1943; Washington Art Gallery, August 1943, one man show, twenty watercolors and fifteen oils; Miami Women’s Club, 1944; Washington Art Gallery, Miami Beach, one man show, 1944; Miami Women’s Club, 1944; Society of The Four Arts, January 1945, 2nd place, watercolor, Polo; Miami Women’s Club, one man show, October 1945; Society of The Four Arts Annual, December 1945-January 1946, watercolors, Green House in Martinique, West Indian Village; Washington Art Galleries, Miami Beach, September 1946, six ballet scenes; Washington Art Galleries, Miami Beach, November 1946, twenty oils, twenty-five watercolors; Society of The Four Arts, 9th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1946-January 1947, 2nd prize, oil, Soft Music; Miami Beach Art Center, January 1947, Mangrove Mystery, Apple Pickers and Going Calling; Miami Beach Outdoor Fair, Lord Tarleton Hotel, February 1947, five watercolors; Miami Woman’s Club 19th Annual, February 18, 1947, gold seal for Palms; Miami Boat Show, Municipal Auditorium, Bayfront Park, March 1947, 1st prize marine painting, Fresh Breeze; Society of The Four Arts, 10th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1947-January 1948, Evening Flowers; Palm Beach Art League, 30th Annual members exhibit, February-March 1948, first honorable mention, Florida subject for Yachts-Gulls and Sky; Washington Art Galleries, Miami Beach, November 1948; Society of The Four Arts, 11th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1948-January 1949, Maid of Lorraine, Prize, oil, Silent Pool; Palm Beach Art League, honorable mention, 1948, Yachts-Gulls and Sky; Palm Beach Art League 31st Annual, March 1949, honorable mention, oil; Society of The Four Arts, 12th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1949-January 1950; Housekeeper‘s Club annual exhibit, Coconut Grove, January 1950, Rendezvous; Terry Art Institute Annual, May 1950; Palm Beach Art League 33rd Annual, March 1951, honorable mention, Ballet Abstraction; Casablanca Hotel, Miami Beach, May 1951; Society of The Four Arts, 14th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1951-January 1952; Palm Beach Art League, 34th Annual, March 1952, watercolor, Rendezvous; Roney Plaza Hotel, Miami Beach, November 1952, Composition; Terry Art Institute, Art Instructors Exhibit, 2323 S.W. 27th Avenue, January 1953, oil Ballet Rhythms; Blue Dome Fellowship, Miami Beach Art Center, March 1953, Day at the Zoo; Palm Beach Art League, 35th Annual Members’ Exhibition, March 1953; Mirell Gallery, Coconut Grove, October 1953, Chickens, Horses in the Evening; Blue Dome Fellowship Annual, Miami Beach Art Center, March 1954, Evening and Music; Sea Isle Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sea Isle Hotel, Miami Beach, April 1954, Joan of Arc; Florida Artist Group, Annual Circuit, 1954; Marathon Montmartre Exhibit, Buccaneer Lodge, February 20-23, 1958; Marathon Montmartre Outdoor Art Exhibit, February 12-15, 1959; Florida Artist Group, 12th Annual Circuited Exhibition, 1961-62, Gouache, Horses; Blue Dome Fellowship; Mirell Gallery, Coconut Grove. Directory: Listed in the Miami City Directory as a watercolor artist in 1933 and 1947 with a studio at 327 Sevilla Avenue, Coral Gables.
