He returned to the Midwest after the death of his French wife, Marie, in 1891, and worked as a lithographer in Cincinnati until 189, when he established his home and studio in Indianapolis.
Stark raised his four children in Indianapolis and continued his career there as a painter and art educator for the remainder of his life.
Stark received an early education at private schools in Indianapolis before beginning an apprenticeship to a Cincinnati, Ohio, lithographer at the age of sixteen.
Stark studied at the Art Students League under William Merritt Chase, James Carroll Beckwith, and Thomas Dewing, among others.
[4][6] In 1885, at the age of twenty-six, Stark enrolled at Académie Julien in Paris, France, where he studied under Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre for three years.
They later became the parents of four children: two daughters, Gretchen Leone and Suzanne Marie, and two sons, Paul Gustav and Edward Otto.
[9][11] In late 1891 Stark moved his four children to Indianapolis, Indiana, so that his sister, Augusta, and his widowed father could help raise them.
Stark, who lived at the Delaware Street home for the remainder of his life, built a separate art studio on a lot at the rear of the residence.
[14] Margaret Stark (1915–1988) received basic instruction in painting from her grandfather, Otto, during her childhood in Indiana.
Stark returned to the Midwest after the death of his French wife in 1891, and established his home and art studio in Indianapolis in 1893.
After completing his formal art training in New York City and Paris, Stark returned to the United States in 1888 with his French wife, Marie, and one-year-old daughter, Gretchen.
[10][9] Following his wife's death in November 1891, Stark moved his four children to Indianapolis, Indiana, so that his father and sister could care for them while he worked as a lithographer in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He worked in oil, watercolor, and pastel, and drew on his everyday life experiences as a parent of small children.
[7][21] Stark was one of the artists included in the Five Hoosier Painters exhibition that the Central Art Association sponsored in Chicago, Illinois, in December 1894.
[8] The exhibition, which was housed in sculptor Lorado Taft's studio in Chicago, comprised more than sixty paintings by Stark, William Forsyth, T. C. Steele, J. Ottis Adams, and Richard Gruelle.
"[22] The five artists were professional friends, with some working on collaborative projects and occasionally sharing studio space, but they never formally organized as a group.
In 1914, along with Forsyth, Steele, and eleven other artists, Stark painted murals for Indianapolis City Hospital.
Stark's contribution for the hospital murals was Toy Parade, a panoramic frieze for a third-floor kindergarten room.
[27] Stark retired from teaching at Manual High School and the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis in 1919 to become a full-time painter.
[30] Stark's career as an art instructor also influenced his former students, which include several notable Indiana painters, such as Marie Goth, William Edouard Scott, Elmer Taflinger, Evelyn Mess Daily, Emma Eyles Sangernebo, and Bertha Hazelrigg Brown, among others.