Louis Pohl

Who is Louis Pohl?

Louis Pohl was an American painter, illustrator, art teacher, printmaker and cartoonist. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1915. A childhood illness made it impossible to walk without pain and prevented Pohl from entering school until he was 8 years old. To keep him occupied, his parents would give him papers and pencils with which to draw. When 14 years old, Pohl spent his summer caddying at a local golf course. A regular foursome of well-to-do women made an unusual wager—the loser would make their caddy's wish come true. Mrs. Yaeger paid for Pohl’s tuition at the Art Academy of Cincinnati for two years. He spent the next 4 years as a teacher's assistant. He did most of the hands-on teaching given to the art students, and he also taught art to underprivileged kids on Saturdays. Eventually, Pohl received his certificate of art upon the completion of a full standing nude copy of a Rembrandt that hung in the Cincinnati Art Museum.

When World War II broke out, Pohl enlisted in the United States Navy, which sent him to Hawaii and assigned him to paint ships in dry dock. He was injured when a destroyer caught fire, and the explosion knocked him off the second level of a scaffold. Pohl was medically discharged and reluctantly returned to Cincinnati, where he was hired by the Works Progress Administration to supervise other artists. In that capacity, he painted a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.