Orlando Gray Wales

Who was Orlando Gray Wales?

Orlando Gray Wales was an American landscape painter and Pennsylvania impressionist who lived and painted in Allentown, Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. Wales was considered to be one of the best still-life artists of the day.

Wales was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with William Merritt Chase and Alphonse Mucha.

He first exhibited in 1912 at the studio of fellow painter Arlington Nelson Lindenmuth. A Wales' painting was one of the first 110 works acquired and exhibited by the Allentown Art Museum upon their opening in 1936.

He maintained a studio at Tenth and Hamilton Streets in Allentown.

As a teacher, his students included John E. Berninger and Clarence Dreisbach. Wales maintained a lifelong friendship with illustrator, painter and printmaker Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer, who was also raised in Allentown and also studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.