Walter Lee Dinteman
Born Walter Lee Barringer August 26, 1922 in Falling Waters, West Virginia, Walter was adopted by his mother’s 2nd husband James Dinteman when he was eight. Walter attended local schools including a technical high school where he learned drafting. He worked summers in the Fairchild Aircraft Company, attended Potomac State College and West Virginia University majoring in art education. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps and was trained as a B-24 bomber pilot. In the late fall of 1944 he flew his plane, later called Miss Behavin’ to Cerignola, Italy. From there he flew many missions over enemy territory in Romania, Austria, and Germany until the end of the war in Europe. He earned an Air Medal for his service. He returned from Europe just a day before his first son, Walter Anthony Dinteman, was born on July 6, 1945.
Following WWII he had various high school and art school positions and earned a Masters Degree in fine art from NYU. During the Korean War he had a position teaching art to GI’s at a base in Japan. Later he worked as an Art Director at AVCO Corporation in Boston and had a position in advertising and public relations for the Port Authority of New York. As a professional photographer, Walter Lee Dinteman, won various prizes and exhibited in many East Coast photography shows. His photographic book on the Eastern Pennsylvania coal region called Anthracite Ghosts was published by Scranton University Press.
In the late 1960’s, Walter returned to the classroom where he taught photography and the new art of videography at several community colleges in New York and New Jersey. After retiring from classroom teaching, Walter took a job in Egypt for four years where he made training films for the Egyptian textile industry. That experience led to another assignment in the Sultanate of Oman where he ran a very large video education department at Sultan Qaboos University. It was in Oman that Walter met, and later married, Charlotte Munck Dinteman of Nykobing, Denmark. His colorful photographic history of Oman called Forts of Oman was the centerpiece of an exhibit at the Arab Institute in Paris in the mid 1990’s.
In his later retirement years, Walter wrote many short stories and made hundreds of wax pencil drawings at his home in Stege, Denmark. His paintings drawings of the quaint village continue to be exhibited in several art gallies on the Island of Mon. In the past three years he produced fifty drawings in a series entitled Bawdy Cat for which his son composed haiku captions. He also collaborated with Walter Anthony Dinteman on a second volume of more than fifty drawings called the Ribald Cat . In that series, Walter Anthony composed limerick captions to fit the style of those drawings. In a third volume, again with fifty plus drawings, Walter Lee created Erotic Cat with themes so surrealistic they defied short captions. And then, in the last weeks before his death in April, 2009, Walter made a series of a dozen cat portraits. Long a lover of cats, Walter Lee was fascinated with their beauty and all manifestations of cat behavior.
The works presented at this exhibition are drawn from the three “Naughty Cat” books (2007-2009) and the cat portraits collection (2009).
--Walter Anthony Barringer Dinteman, 2009
Born Walter Lee Barringer August 26, 1922 in Falling Waters, West Virginia, Walter was adopted by his mother’s 2nd husband James Dinteman when he was eight. Walter attended local schools including a technical high school where he learned drafting. He worked summers in the Fairchild Aircraft Company, attended Potomac State College and West Virginia University majoring in art education. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps and was trained as a B-24 bomber pilot. In the late fall of 1944 he flew his plane, later called Miss Behavin’ to Cerignola, Italy. From there he flew many missions over enemy territory in Romania, Austria, and Germany until the end of the war in Europe. He earned an Air Medal for his service. He returned from Europe just a day before his first son, Walter Anthony Dinteman, was born on July 6, 1945.
Following WWII he had various high school and art school positions and earned a Masters Degree in fine art from NYU. During the Korean War he had a position teaching art to GI’s at a base in Japan. Later he worked as an Art Director at AVCO Corporation in Boston and had a position in advertising and public relations for the Port Authority of New York. As a professional photographer, Walter Lee Dinteman, won various prizes and exhibited in many East Coast photography shows. His photographic book on the Eastern Pennsylvania coal region called Anthracite Ghosts was published by Scranton University Press.
In the late 1960’s, Walter returned to the classroom where he taught photography and the new art of videography at several community colleges in New York and New Jersey. After retiring from classroom teaching, Walter took a job in Egypt for four years where he made training films for the Egyptian textile industry. That experience led to another assignment in the Sultanate of Oman where he ran a very large video education department at Sultan Qaboos University. It was in Oman that Walter met, and later married, Charlotte Munck Dinteman of Nykobing, Denmark. His colorful photographic history of Oman called Forts of Oman was the centerpiece of an exhibit at the Arab Institute in Paris in the mid 1990’s.
In his later retirement years, Walter wrote many short stories and made hundreds of wax pencil drawings at his home in Stege, Denmark. His paintings drawings of the quaint village continue to be exhibited in several art gallies on the Island of Mon. In the past three years he produced fifty drawings in a series entitled Bawdy Cat for which his son composed haiku captions. He also collaborated with Walter Anthony Dinteman on a second volume of more than fifty drawings called the Ribald Cat . In that series, Walter Anthony composed limerick captions to fit the style of those drawings. In a third volume, again with fifty plus drawings, Walter Lee created Erotic Cat with themes so surrealistic they defied short captions. And then, in the last weeks before his death in April, 2009, Walter made a series of a dozen cat portraits. Long a lover of cats, Walter Lee was fascinated with their beauty and all manifestations of cat behavior.
The works presented at this exhibition are drawn from the three “Naughty Cat” books (2007-2009) and the cat portraits collection (2009).
--Walter Anthony Barringer Dinteman, 2009
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