About the artist:

Albert Melville Graves (1862-1950), landscape and portrait painter, was born in Holyoke in November of 1862. His family soon moved to Chicopee where Graves was educated in local schools. He spent four years studying at Boston's Normal Art School and an additional year of study in various art schools and studios in Boston. Graves is first listed in the 1887/88 City Directory as an artist living at 95 Cabot Street in Holyoke. By 1901, his residence was 302 Springfield Street in Chicopee until his move to Springfield in 1920. In 1930 Graves moved to 75 Dover Road, Longmeadow, residing there until his death in 1950. Graves spent the greater part of his life traveling all over the world with his niece, Eunice Harriet Avery, the well-known traveler and lecturer on current world events. Only three weeks before his death at age 89, Graves returned from a tour of Japan and the Phillipine Islands. On such travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, he discovered subjects for his paintings. Graves did not often sell his art work although several of his paintings were sold at J.H. Miller's 7th Annual Exhibit in 1917. Many paintings by Graves may be found in area collections, including portraits of Judge Luther White, Edward Bellamy and Justing Spaulding at the Chicopee Public Library, and a Venetian scene called ENTRANCE TO THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE at the Holyoke Art Museum in the Holyoke Public Library. Graves also made sketches of automobiles for the Stevens-Duryea Company.