Katherine Gunckel Loy Dayton Art Exhibitions Scrapbook (SC-378)

The Montgomery County Art Association, founded in 1912, was an antecedent to the Dayton Museum of Arts (established in 1919) which later became the Dayton Art Institute in 1927.

The following description of the Montgomery County Art Association comes from Charlotte Reeve Conover's "Dayton, Ohio - An Intimiate History" (1932):

...there came into existence in 1912 the Montgomery County Art Association, whose object was to foster an interest in art, through lectures, exhibits and loans of pictures. The first president was Mrs. Henry Stoddard, whose glowing and contagious enthusiasm proved to be epidemic in the end. She loved, thought, dreamed and talked pictures. She could see beauty in everything and had discriminating taste. The second presiding officer of the Art Association was Mr. Houston Lowe under whose devoted leadership the organization made many strides forward. Another ardent supporter of the infant industry was Miss Annie Campbell, for years a teacher of art in Steele High School, and a painter in oil and water colors. Mrs. Henry Loy [Katherine Gunckel Loy] gave generously of her time and cultivated taste. She and Mrs. Stoddard were the moving spirits in organizing exhibitions of paintings and trying to induce a rather tepid public to attend. In 1917 the name of the organization was charged to the Dayton Art Association. From that time on its activities enlarged and increased. The Dayton papers were supplied with publicity on pictures and artists, it filed records relative to the current items of art history in Dayton; it enlisted in the fight against a proposed increase in the tariff on art objects; it secured a fine collection of oil paintings through the American Federation of Arts, which was exhibited for two weeks.