Francis Henry Dart

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Francis Henry Dart was born in Brecksville, Ohio on August 1, 1845 to Duranson Dart and Helen Mary Kellogg Dart (later Mrs. Helen M. Leonard). His family moved to Ilion, New York (near Saratoga Springs) when he was a child, but returned to Ohio before 1864, when Dart enrolled in the Preparatory Department and the College in Oberlin. During these years he also worked as a teacher in the local schools. In 1868, he had to leave Oberlin for financial reasons.

Dart spent the next few years, 1868-70, traveling around the country. He lived in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Illinois, and Kansas, and kept sketchbooks of the sights he saw. Once again, Dart returned to Ohio, this time to Mt. Union College in Alliance, where he finished his education, receiving both AB (1877) and AM degrees (1880). In 1877, Dart took a job as a janitor in the Mt. Union Art Museum where he eventually worked his way up to a position as curator (according to his account).

In 1879, Dart headed out West to mine for gold near Breckenridge, Colorado. His journals from this trip are filled with stories of adventures. Before long, he moved back to Oberlin in 1880, where he opened his first professional studio. That same year, he married Mary T. Leonard (1872-77 Prep. & Lit.), a former Oberlin College student, and daughter of Harvey Leonard who was his mother’s second husband. The 1880s were good years for Dart, working as a successful landscape and portrait painter. In 1890, he moved to Paris to study art for a time, planning upon his return to open a school for painting and photography in Oberlin with A.C. Falor. While Dart was in Paris, Falor moved away from Oberlin. Dart decided to move to Saratoga Springs, New York, and owned a downtown studio for the next two years.

In 1892 he moved to Elmore, Ohio, where he farmed and painted. In 1900, Francis, Mary and their two children, Sidney and Helen, moved for the last time—to Oberlin. Dart again opened a studio, and worked in Oberlin until his death in 1935 at the age of 89.