“Swinging Harmony” a Black Dancers” Couple by Edgar O’Kiechle – Oil Painting

“Swinging Harmony,” is an oil painting on canvas by Edgar O’Kiechle. It transports viewers into a lively dance scene featuring a couple of black dancers swinging at the heart of the painting.

The intensity of the dancers’ relationship is palpable in the artwork. Their focused eye contact and synchronized body language convey a sense of mutual dedication to their performance. Kiechle deliberately blurs the background, emphasizing that in this moment, the outside world fades away, and the only thing that matters is the connection between the dancers. The painter’s choice to render the surroundings in impressionist strokes reinforces the idea that their entire attention is devoted to achieving the perfect dance movement together.

“Swinging Harmony” is a celebration of movement, connection, and the shared passion of the dance, encapsulating the joy and intimacy of a couple lost in the enchantment of their performance.

Edgar O. Kiechle was born in 1911. He was a movie illustrator and a painter.
Edgar studied landscape painting with Jean Mannheim, and architecture, and became an excellent watercolorist. After studying at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, he interned with leading architects and designers in the area. He worked at most major studios but his career as an illustrator saw him primarily at the Universal Studio Art department.
In 1933, Edgar joined Lwerks as a background artist and worked on many films produced by Animated Picture Corporation through 1935.
In the summer of 1941, Ed Kiechle joined the Universal Studio Art Department as an illustrator for motion pictures. His career as an illustrator saw him primarily at Universal.
He also produced hundreds of oil paintings. His first public showing was in an exhibition of motion picture artists in 1945, His work came to the attention of the motion picture colony and many purchases were made by such notables of his day as Ida Lupino, Hedy Lamar, Helmut Dantine, Harry Warren, Georgie Hale, Jerome Kern, Ira Gershwin, and others. at which time Herman Reuter wrote, “in the Kiechle canvasses, there is spirit, imagination, and dexterity of manipulation.”
Critic Herman Reuter wrote in the Hollywood Citizen-News that Kiechle’s “vigorous approach” was “especially notable in several oils,” adding that his “bold layering on of paint seems to serve a definite expressive purpose, rather than being a mere mannerism as it so often is with those who mistake plastic tub-thumping for impressiveness.”
In 1953 the distinguished art critic of the Los Angeles Times, Arthur Millier, called Kiechle “a born painter,” saying that he had “a gift for suggesting atmosphere, and is one of the best painters of the night in the region.”
In addition to one-man and invitational shows, Kiechle’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, Oakland.
Edgar O. Kiechle died June 24, 1960, at the age of 49, but his vision of the world lives on in his work, exhibited in posthumous shows and hanging in numerous private collections.