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Ed Kitchen gives insight on his grandmother’s artwork in light of the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio’s ‘Hindsight’ exhibition

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Few artists will ever have their work displayed in a museum.

Fewer still will ever have their artwork displayed alongside their grandmother’s artwork in the very same exhibition.

Ed Kitchen is one of these few, and through April 24, the Lancaster-based watercolorist’s art will be on display alongside paintings by his grandmother, folk artist Tella Kitchen, as a part of the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio’s “Hindsight: the Art of Looking Back” exhibition.

Tella and Ed
Tella Kitchen’s “Col. Lee Butler Takes Bids at One of the Horse Sales Held by My Brother Col. Clarence Denehue at Our Home in Independence, Indiana” (left) and her grandson’s “Mardi Gras Parade–Lancaster, Ohio” (right)

“Hindsight” celebrates the work of Ohio’s memory painters, who rendered with self-taught hands scenes of the bucolic, rural Ohio of their youth. Tella was one of these self-taught artists, and although her work is currently a part of the American Folk Art Museum’s collection, Tella didn’t even begin painting until she was 67 years old – by that time, Ed was already into what would be a 40-year career teaching high school art.

While Ed was trained in art in an academic setting, unlike his grandmother, he said that both the artwork she created during her lifetime and the art he continues to create in his are both dedicated to the very same purpose: illuminating their memories of days past.

Listen to WOUB Culture’s conversation with Ed Kitchen, embedded above, and find more information on Ed Kitchen’s art at edkitchenwatercolors.com.

The Decorative Arts Center of Ohio is open Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio is always free.