History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Wilbur A. Reaser
WILBUR A. REASER, figure and portrait painter, was born at Antwerp, Ohio, in 1860. He came to Iowa with his father's family in 1866, locating at Homer, in Hamilton County. Mr. Reaser was educated in the public schools of Fort Dodge and when eighteen taught music and made crayon portraits. At the age of twenty he removed to Oakland, California, and studied in the art schools of San Francisco for four years, supporting himself by teaching music for which he had decided talent. About 1887 Mr. Reaser went to Europe where he spent nearly ten years in the study of art. Since returning to America he has made his home at Rockland Lake, New York. His most noted picture is “Mother and Child” for which he received the first Hallgarten prize in New York, and which was afterwards purchased by Andrew Carnegie for the permanent collection at Pittsburg. Mr. Reaser has painted a number of Iowa landscapes and of late many portraits of Iowa people.