Lila B. Hetzel

1873 - 1967

BiographyLila B. Hetzel and her daughter, Dorothy Hetzel Kantner, were well-known figures in the Pittsburgh art community throughout the twentieth century. Lila Barr Hetzel, daughter of prominent Pittsburgh artist George Hetzel and Marie Louise Siegrist Hetzel, was born on October 23, 1873 in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Edgewood. Against her father's wishes, she pursued an art career, studying at the Pittsburgh School of Design with Martin B. Leisser and D. B. Walkley. Eventually her father accepted her vocational choice, but due to his early refusal to teach her, she developed a painting style quite unlike his. In 1898, she moved with her parents and two brothers to a house near Somerset (Somerset County, Pa.) that became known as the Hetzel Studio. At that time, and in the years following, Somerset was developing into a summer art colony.

She married William H. Kantner, a resident of Somerset, in 1904. This short-lived marriage produced one daughter, Dorothy Hetzel Kantner, born in 1906. After her separation from William Kantner, Lila returned with her daughter to Pittsburgh, where she established a studio in the Apollo Building on Fourth Avenue. She was a charter member and treasurer of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, founded in 1910. She supported herself and her young daughter solely by giving lessons and selling her work. At the outbreak of World War I, Lila and Dorothy returned to Somerset, where Lila reopened the Hetzel Studio. She gave private lessons and in 1939, she opened the Somerset Art School. Her work was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh Playhouse, the Arts and Crafts Center of Pittsburgh (now Pittsburgh Center for the Arts), Gillespie Galleries, Westmoreland County Museum of Art, and the Jennerstown Art Gallery. In her later years, Lila spent her winters in Pittsburgh and the remainder of the year in Somerset. Lila Hetzel died on June 4, 1967 in Somerset and is buried in Homewood Cemetery.