Roy Cleveland Nuse

Roy Cleveland Nuse (1885-1975) was a Pennsylvania Impressionist artist and a teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1925 to 1954. For almost 60 years he lived and painted in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, working in a plein-air, impressionist style. His six children were often the subjects of his paintings, depicted especially in rural, outdoor settings. Working primarily in oils, but also in pastels, Nuse painted landscapes, figures in the landscape, still lifes and portraits.

A native of Springfield, Ohio, Nuse helped out in his father’s barbershop until his father became ill and Nuse had to drop out of high school. He took a factory job hand-painting lamp shades, where he was recognized for his talent and encouraged to go to art school. His formal art education began at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1905 and he remained there until 1912, studying under Vincent Nowottny and Frank Duveneck. In 1915 he obtained a part-time teaching job at the Beechwood School near Philadelphia, which enabled him to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which was then one of the most renowned art schools in the nation.

A student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1915-1918, Nuse won all the major student awards: the Toppan and Thouron Prizes and two Cresson Traveling Scholarships to travel and study art in Europe.

During this time he moved his growing family to live on a farm in rural Bucks County. Between 1917 and 1925 he created many large canvasses of figures in the landscape, focusing on farm life of those times and painting his children and extended family mostly in outdoor settings.

In 1925, Nuse was offered a teaching position at PAFA, where he taught drawing and painting, life and portrait classes until 1954. That same year the Nuse family moved to Rushland, Pennsylvania, a small town with a railroad station that permitted Nuse to commute easily to Philadelphia on his teaching days. Three streams converged in the Rushland valley. These streams, along with many nearby farms became the subject matter for many of the landscapes Nuse painted after 1925.

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