A school principal in Vermillion, Kansas, Alfred Montgomery then became in the 1880s and 1890s, the first teacher of drawing in the public schools of Topeka, Kansas. He also gave art lectures, which contained "flamboyant pronouncements on art and other matters and did not endear him to his critics any more that his realistic paintings" (200), which were farm scenes.

Montgomery had been orphaned in childhood and was "bound out" to farmers until he was 21 years old. For his years of service, he was released with $100. Somehow he got an education and studied art in America and in Europe. His painting, Down on the Farm, received positive attention in Paris.

Ultimately he spent much t...