Akron Life September 2023

PARTING SHOT

by Maggie Harris photo by Ott Gangl, provided by Summit Memory / Akron-Summit County Public Library

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Driving Force ”

Growing up in Salem, Ohio, Don Getz sketched cars in his dad’s steel fabrication shop. He later had a career in commercial art but loved painting automobiles, seascapes and landscapes, including the Cuyahoga Valley. Getz started the Boston Mills ArtFest in 1972, and in 1978, he created the Ohio Watercolor Society, starting with 18 artists who met in his Peninsula home. He also organized weekend art shows at M.D. Garage, a restored 1940s gas station in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park that doesn’t host exhibits anymore but the nearby Gallery does. The late artist has three watercolor paintings in the Canton Museum of Art’s permanent collection, including one of an Ohio license plate with his birth year, 1934, paying homage to both his home state and his lifelong passion for cars.

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SEPTEMBER 2023 | akronlife.com