John Carl Doemling

Who was John Carl Doemling?

John Carl Doemling, artist, the son of Würzburg college professor Leonard Doemling and Johanna Herrmann, was born in Sulzfeld, Rhön-Grabfeld, Bavaria, Germany. Known throughout his life as "Carl", he spent his early years in a seminary preparing to become a priest; however, by age twelve he had opted to pursue an art career instead. He studied art in Würzburg, left home in his teens and supported himself by restoring paintings in churches and monasteries in Italy, Switzerland and France.

In 1911, John Carl immigrated to the U.S. to avoid mandatory military service in Kaiser Wilhelm II's army. He journeyed promptly to Chicago, Illinois to live with his uncle Gustav Doemling and family in the historic Pullman district. His uncle, Gustav, as general foreman in the Cabinet Department for the Pullman Palace Car Company, got Carl a job as a letterer. Carl eventually became a draftsman and designer.

While working, Carl studied at the Art Institute of Chicago along with Walt Disney. He also was a member of the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Art. Josephine Herrmann Boigegrain wrote in her biography: "One of his fellow students at the Chicago Art Institute was a young man by the name of Walt Disney. Disney had fantastic, revolutionary ideas about doing animated artwork, pictures that moved and told a story. He proposed to Carl Doemling that they go in together on the idea. Carl thought Disney was crazy. He did not accept. He later learned how wrong he had been."