Allen Memorial Art Museum Gallery

An accomplished watercolorist and printmaker, Paul Arnold graduated from Oberlin with a B.A. in 1940 and an M.A. in 1941, and began teaching at the college in 1942. While he was still an undergraduate, Arnold painted a series of watercolors of the Allen’s galleries and its director’s office. This rendering of a gallery then dedicated to Asian art has a lively, sketch-like quality, but captures enough detail that the objects on view, which include a Chinese wooden cabinet and Persian and Turkish rugs, can still be identified. Arnold had a particular interest in Asian art, having been born and raised in China, where his father was a general secretary for the YMCA. Arnold was drafted into service in World War II and eventually returned to China to conduct intelligence work with the U.S. military; he was discharged in 1946 and resumed his position at Oberlin, becoming a full professor and department chair. He gave his early watercolors of the Allen’s galleries to the museum in 1985, the year he retired after four decades of teaching.