Likely hundreds of thousands of MSU graduates have seen the painting, Plaedes, by John de Martelly which hangs in the Union. As an artist, de Martelly worked in a variety of mediums but he was the most famous for his Regionalism style and print making best represented by “Blue Valley Fox Hunt.”

De Martelly began teaching at MSU in 1943 moving his later career toward Abstract Expressionism; however, President John A. Hannah was enamored by his earlier works and had the lithograph “Make Hay While the Sun Shines” hanging in his office.

He taught for 26 years at Michigan State University living the legacy of the time he spent at the Kansas City Art Institute working closely with his friend Thomas Hart Benton.

One of the last works de Martelly painted was an oil painting of Chief Okemos which now hangs in the Nokomis Indian Center in Okemos, Michigan. Despite his fame, he worked in a studio built from a WWII Quonset hut on Cornell Rd. in Okemos. As he neared death, he began work in his driveway on a commercial wooden fishing boat.

De Martelly roots can be traced to England and an early ancestor Richard John Stockton was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence.