For the first time, Ronald Floethe, the curator for the estate of Richard Floethe, and his brother, Stephen, are offering for sale a select number of their father’s original silkscreens, watercolors and pen & inks.  In this, their initial offering,  they have selected some of their father’s favorite subjects: sailing, the Florida Gulfshore, the Hopi and Navajo Kachina dolls of New Mexico and the ranch lands of Wyoming. Also included are some of Richard Floethe’s unique abstracts and whimsical works of art. In the coming months, Ronald and Stephen will be expanding this website to include more of their father’s artwork.  You are invited to visit often. 

Richard Floethe — (1901 - 1988) was a prolific artist of considerable stature. He was born in Essen, Germany and received his art training at the Munich State School, the Dartmund Art School, and at the Bauhaus in Weimar. While at the Bauhaus, he studied design with Paul Klee and color theory and composition with Wassily Kandin

sky. He came to the United States in 1928.

Floethe found early success in New York City as an industrial designer and book illustrator and by the mid-1930s, his work was internationally known. From 1936-39 he was administrator and art director of the New York City poster division of the WPA art projects. From 1942-43 he was art director of the New York War Service.

During his long, successful career as a book illustrator, he designed and/or illustrated nearly 100 books — mostly for children. He twice won the limited Editions Club International Contest for best illustrated books. Many of his books were included by the American Institute of Graphic Arts in their choice for the Fifty Books of the year. He also illustrated 23 children’s books written by his wife, Louise Lee Floethe. He is listed in “Who’s Who in American Art” and “Mallett’s Index of Artists”.  Floethe was an instructor of commercial design at Cooper Union, New York City and of illustration at the Ringling School of Art, Sarasota.

Floethe’s watercolors and prints are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the St Louis and Philadelphia Museums, the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach, Germany, the Spencer Collection, the Kerlan Collection of the University of Minnesota, the University of Oregon, the University of South Florida, and in many private collections.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Richard Floethe created a number of watercolors, oil paintings and silkscreen prints that celebrate the beauty and unique environment of the west coast of Florida, where he lived, and the Western and Southwestern United States, where he often visited. These gaily colored, often whimsical works were shown in one-person shows at the Frank J. Oehlschlaeger Galleries and Madison-Noble Gallery in Sarasota.