Albert Henry Krehbiel (November 25, 1873 – June 29, 1945), was the most decorated American painter ever at the French Academy, winning the Prix De Rome, four gold medals and five cash prizes.

His masterpiece is the programme of eleven decorative wall and two ceiling paintings / murals for the Supreme and Appellate Court Rooms in Springfield, Illinois (1907–1911).

In 1879, he moved with his family to Newton, Kansas, where his father was a prominent Mennonite layman, prosperous carriage and buggy maker, and later a co-founder of Bethel College.

In the summer of 1898, Krehbiel made his way from Newton to Chicago by bicycle with his younger brother, Fred, and enrolled at The Art Institute for the fall semester.

In the summers of 1922 and 1923, Krehbiel was invited by the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe to participate in its Visiting Artists Program and was given a studio in the prestigious Palace of the Governors next to his contemporary, Ashcan realist Robert Henri.

[20][21] Other notable artists that Krehbiel exhibited with during this period include William Victor Higgins, Ernest L. Blumenschein, John French Sloan, Raymond Jonson, and Stuart Davis.

[7] In 1934, Krehbiel opened his own summer school of art in Saugatuck called the AK Studio [22][23] When able to break away from his students, he would capture the surrounding rolling hills and the Kalamazoo River in oil, watercolor, and pastel.

During the years of 1912 through about 1930, Krehbiel was known to leave his Park Ridge, Illinois, home on a freezing cold morning and not return until the end of the day with two or three freshly painted canvases of the surrounding landscape.

[24][25] He also composed many watercolors and countless pastels of the area, often capturing the local inhabitants in the warmer months working in the fields or taking a moment to enjoy the lush forest landscape populated with brooks and streams.

Occasionally, Krehbiel would visit the northern Illinois town of Galena on weekends and holidays to paint large canvases of the tree-covered hills with their scattering of homes and barns.