Administrative/Biographical History
Paul Beaver Arnold was born in 1918 in T’ai Yuan Fu, Shansi Province, China, to Roger and Eleanor Tracy Arnold. His father was a YMCA general secretary, and Arnold spent almost the entirety of his first 18 years in Asia. He was about six years old when he began to show interest in the art that would become one of his greatest passions in life. An entire wall outside their house in T’ai Yuan Fu was painted black, and there Arnold and his two younger brothers and friends would spend hours sketching with chalk.
After graduating from the Shanghai American School in 1936, Arnold came to Oberlin College intending to major in French literature. He changed his plans after taking a studio art course in watercolor painting. Apart from sketching and painting, Arnold spent his time at Oberlin on the fencing team and as a member of and waiter in French House, where he met his future wife, Sarah (Sally) Ann Clagett (class of 1941). After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees, in 1940 and 1941, he began teaching art at Oberlin in 1942, the year he and Sally married.
Only a few months after the wedding, Arnold was drafted into the U.S. Army. With his nearsightedness and dependence on glasses, he was not placed into combat. Instead, he became a laboratory technician for the Medical Corps, where he spent much of his time drawing diagrams of basic medical lab procedures. In 1944, Arnold’s Chinese language skills brought him to the attention of the Office of Strategic Services; he spent his remaining two years of service based in China doing intelligence work. Upon his discharge from the army in 1946, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
Arnold began his permanent teaching at Oberlin after his discharge. During this period he rose from instructor to full professor, and his 1985 retirement marked the longest continuous tenure of a faculty member at the time. He served as acting chairman of the Department of Art between 1967 and 1968, and as chairman between 1970 and 1979. Though he began his career as a watercolorist, over the years Arnold’s preferred medium gradually turned toward the art of printmaking, a change that began when he was chosen to teach a course on the subject in 1950. Not knowing anything on the art form, Arnold read a few books on the subject the summer before the class took place. Though the class was “an utter failure,” as Arnold put it, printmaking stuck with him just as much as drawing originally had back when he was a child. In 1955, Arnold earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Minnesota, a school known for its excellence in printmaking. From then on, he constantly sought to learn more about the art form through his travels and observances of master printmakers throughout the world, in particular those in Japan.
Paul Arnold’s artwork was exhibited around the United States, frequently with more than five shows per year, since 1942. His art won numerous prizes, especially within his specialty of printmaking. On a 1962 sabbatical to Japan, Arnold learned the art of Japanese woodcut printing. Many publications, including books and articles, bear his byline. Arnold’s impact on his profession was felt through his service as president of the College Art Association as well as a term as president of the National Association of Schools of Art. By the end of his career as an artist, Arnold’s work had appeared in over 225 exhibitions, had won numerous awards and accolades, and was a part of 15 public collections, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the Library of Congress.
Along with the founding of the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts (FAVA) in Oberlin and serving on its board of trustees for 30 years, Arnold was a member of the First Church in Oberlin and the Oberlin Heritage Center’s board, and he served on the City of Oberlin Zoning Board of Appeals (1955-1957), City of Oberlin Planning Commission (1955-1963), and the Oberlin City Council (1968-1969). He was a fencing coach for the College, and a two-time project director for the Peace Corps Training Program. Arnold was director of Oberlin’s East Asian Studies Center, and was involved in Oberlin Shansi, serving as a trustee and honorary trustee for decades and receiving the organization’s Lifetime Distinguished Service Award in 2002. He was a member of the college’s Architectural Review Committee since its inception in 1986, and through this program was commissioned to design three of Oberlin’s public monuments: the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument in 1987; the Wellington Rescue Monument, 1990; and the John Frederick Oberlin Monument in 1994 on the College campus near Wilder Hall. He also executed two mural projects in Oberlin: murals in the Administration Building, Gilford Instrument Laboratories in 1971; and in the College’s student union in 1973.
Arnold’s love of art took him all over the world. He spent significant time working, studying, and teaching in countries including China, Japan, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cyprus, England, the Ivory Coast, and France.
Paul Arnold died July 2, 2012, in the hospice unit of Kendal in Oberlin at the age of 93. He was preceded in death by his wife in 2010. He was survived by five children, Peggy Arnold, Tracie Arnold Hampton, Judy Arnold, Kemper Arnold, and Tsugiko Scullion, a daughter through the AFS international exchange program; eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and two brothers, James and Allen.
Sources Consulted
“Emeritus Professor of Fine Arts Paul B. Arnold, 1918-2012,” The Source (Oberlin College Newsletter), July 11, 2012.
Author: Anne Cuyler Salsich Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationSeven small lots of material were received from Paul Arnold between 1992 and 2011. A woodcut was received from Frances Ebbers in 2011, a watercolor from the Art Department in 2012, moving images shown at Arnold’s memorial service from Elizabeth Rumics in 2013, and rubbings from stone monuments (taken ca. 1980) collected by Arnold, received from Carl Jacobson, also in 2013. Carl Jacobson also separated one small box of Arnold's photographs from the Shansi materials from his tenure as director; these were added to Series 9 in 2015. Other materials were transferred from RG 40, Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Framed Items, and from RG 35, Objects.
An accretion of roughly nine linear feet was received from the Arnold family in 2018. Architectural Review Committee records in that accession were filed in RG 33 Various Committees.
For digital representations of the models made by Paul B. Arnold during the design phase for the John Frederick Oberlin monument, see the Objects Digital Catalogue for the Objects Collection (RG 35), items number 277, 278, and 279 (http://cdm15963.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/objects ).
For video interviews with Paul Arnold, see RG 57, Moving Images, and Oberlin’s Namesake: John Frederick Oberlin by the Oberlin College Archives, 2010 at http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/oberlins_namesake/.
For records of the Peace Corps Training Program during Paul Arnold’s two terms as director, see RG 9/8 Peace Corps.
