Walter Stuempfig

Walter Stuempfig was born in Germantown and spent most of his career in Philadelphia. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1931 - 1934, studying with Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber, and Francis Speight and won the Cresson scholarship for foreign travel in 1933. Stuempfig's art was greatly influenced by his extensive european travel, and he would later list his inspirations as Poussin, Caravaggio, and Corot.

Stuempfig was a prolific artist and highly regarded in his lifetime for his still-lifes, portraits, urban scenes and landscapes of the Philadelphia area and Cape May. He exhibited frequently in Philadelphia and New York, receiving his first solo gallery show in 1943. Some critics of his day described him as a "romantic realist" for the melancholic and meditative quality of his work.