Obituary for S. Warren Krebs, 1936 - 2005
S. Warren Krebs of Nantucket and Florence, MA, died suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday, May 28, 2005 in Northampton, MA. An artist, actor, director and educator, he was 69. At the time of his death he was planning to open his studio/gallery for his 30th summer season.
The son of Samuel Romberger Krebs and Helen Laudermilch Krebs, he was born in Lancaster, PA. His parents started taking him to plays at a very early age, and for his seventh birthday took him to the New York opening of Oklahoma! In 1987 he directed the same musical with Barbara Elder and Giovanna La Paglia for the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket. At an early age he showed a talent for drawing, and he spent his Saturdays taking the train to Philadelphia for art lessons at the Academy of Fine Arts. He also served as an apprentice with several regional theatres. After graduating from Manheim Township High School, he attended Franklin and Marshall College where he majored in Fine Arts and Art History. There he was given the opportunity to help design and build the stage sets for The Green Room. He graduated from F&M in 1958.
In 1959 he joined the faculty of Westtown Friends School in Westtown, PA, where he taught Studio Art and Art History for 18 years. There he met his wife, and for five years they were house parents to ninth grade boys. He and a group of students designed and constructed elaborate stage sets for the school’s numerous dramatic productions. With a group of dedicated colleagues, Krebs helped to fulfill a dream for the school, the completion of the Westtown School Center for the Living Arts, which contained a theatre, art and music studios, and a space where Krebs, local Chester County artists and students displayed and shared their artwork. Krebs’ first one-man show was held at Westtown in May of 1965. During his time at the school, he began his acting career by participating in the annual faculty plays. Two of his outstanding performances were the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado and Teddy Roosevelt in Arsenic and Old Lace.
In the summer of 1975, Krebs joined the art community of Nantucket by opening a portion of his home as the Krebs Studio/Gallery. Two years later he and his family became year-round residents. He developed his mixed media Nantucket drawings, which were a unique combination of pen and ink, liquid watercolor, and finally Prismacolor pencil applied on gray or beige stock. These drawings are in private collections nationally and internationally. Krebs is also known for his impressionistic landscapes and abstract oil paintings. He spent the past winter developing a new series of large abstract canvases entitled “Whispers.” Krebs once told a writer for the Boston Globe, “I paint the bones of Nantucket, the bones that no summer visitor could ever hope to see, those beautiful bones that swell from the sandy earth and support a mantle of gray, of gray and green and of gray and scarlet.”
In 1978 Mac Dixon, professional actor, director and past Artistic Director of the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, invited Krebs to play the role of Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, which launched Krebs’ acting career on Nantucket. He will be remembered for his performances in Plaza Suite and Cactus Flower and for his direction of Boys Next Door, Rumors, and On Golden Pond.
Krebs became Artistic Director of TWN and served in that capacity for 18 years. He was on the board of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce and the Nantucket Musical Arts Society, was a past president of the Nantucket Rotary Club and a member of the Nantucket Artist Association.
Warren Krebs is survived by his wife of 42 years Anna Jane Krebs; two daughters: Jennifer Krebs of New Haven, CT, and Laurie Krebs Hesse and her husband John C. Hesse of Houston, TX. He is also survived by his grandson Michael Krebs Hesse.
About the Artist
From 1975 - 2004 the Krebs Studio-Gallery, 57 Union Street, Nantucket, MA, exclusively showed the works of S. Warren Krebs, whose stylistic range included fine line drawings in addition to impressionistic and abstract paintings. The artist invited and personally welcomed collectors and art patrons to his historic 1793 home and unique studio-gallery. Visitors were treated to a display of original delicate color drawings of Nantucket, exquisitely exuberant impressionist oil paintings, as well as dynamic abstract canvases - all accomplished with the artist's well-known passion for color and form.
Krebs' original paintings and drawings have been collected by individuals and organizations in the United States and foreign countries.
