Letter: Lichter was another WPA Jewish artist | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Letter: Lichter was another WPA Jewish artist

        I read the article in the April issue, “Great Depression shaped Jewish artists in Wisconsin.”

          Another prominent local Jewish Works Progress Administration artist who participated in this group was my late uncle, Harry E. Lichter (1912-1975), the second oldest of the five sons of Paul and Rebecca Lichter.

          My father, Max Lichter, used to tell me about Harry’s days creating art in the 1930s, alongside his fellow WPA artist friends Joseph Friebert and Alfred Sessler in studio space located on N. Third Street and Highland Avenue in downtown Milwaukee. Harry and the others also shared studio space (and living quarters?) on Plankinton Avenue.

          Harry later taught sculpture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and became curator of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison. He also served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

          In the late 1950s, Harry Lichter, his wife Katherine and their two children David and Kathy moved to Portland, Ore., where Harry became the director of the Portland Historical Society, as well as a known antique restorer.

Janice Lichter

Mequon