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Aug. 26--It's history, with a mystery.
Kaeth Brown of Akron has decided to part with two mural studies painted in the 1930s by Park Sumner, co-founder of the Akron Art Institute.
The 36-by-19-inch framed studies -- which are miniature versions of a proposed mural -- hail from a time when Akron was Rubber Capital of the World. One shows chemists; another, laborers.
The fact that both studies are marked with grids suggest they might have been painted on a wall somewhere.
But where?
Brown's son, Mason Brown, struck out in researching the murals before putting them up for auction on eBay.
Sumner was a technical artist for Goodyear, leading Kaeth Brown to believe he may have painted the murals in a company building.
Besides, one of the murals shows a dirigible in the window.
But Goodyear spokesman Keith Price said he came up empty after beating the bushes looking for someone who remembered the images.
Brown said she bought the mural studies at an estate sale for Sumner's daughter, Jeanette Miles, in the mid-1990s.
Brown's great-great-uncle, Herman Kraft, came to Akron from Germany to help design dirigibles. And her grandfather Chandos Mason was a tire builder with Dayton Tire and Rubber.
"My family is represented on both sides of the industry, so you can see how it appealed to me," she said.
Here's what Mason Brown learned about the artist for a research paper he's prepared for the paintings' new owner:
Park Eldridge Sumner was born in 1888 in Medina County and raised on a farm near Sharon Center.
After attending the Cleveland School of Art, he became a political cartoonist for the Youngstown Telegram and then the Detroit Tribune.
He and his wife, Ethel, ended up in Akron in 1924, when he became a technical artist for Goodyear Aircraft Corp. He retired in 1937.
Sumner also illustrated at least three "Little Big Books" for Saalfield Publishing in Akron: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1934), Black Beauty (1934) and Desert Justice (1938).
He was also an author, and his book Tomorrow Comes wasserialized in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Sumner was also a political activist. He ran for Ohio's 14th Congressional District in 1934 and 1936, losing both times, and made an unsuccessful bid to be Akron's mayor.
He died in 1958.
The auction for the paintings ends Monday. The minimum has been set at $5,000.
The medium appears to be oil-on-canvas with a graphite or charcoal grid covering the entire surface of each painting.
It's unlikely Sumner would have drawn the grids if he had not been preparing to paint the murals on a wall, Brown said.
"Still, it is possible that these murals never made it onto the walls of a Goodyear building," he said.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
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