2025 Annual Meeting – “From German Auxiliary to American Artist: The Life and Work of Frederick Kemmelmeyer” presented by Nicholas Powers

Mark your calendar for this year’s Annual Meeting of the membership on October 28, doors will open at 11:30 a.m., lunch will be served at 12 p.m. The meeting will take place at the Westminster Riding Club, 366 N. Colonial Avenue, Westminster. A sandwich buffet and dessert will be provided by Lib’s Catering followed by Society business and the event’s keynote speaker. Our third annual Distinguished Awards and Volunteer of the Year recognition will also be presented. If you haven’t already done so, please submit your recommendation for Distinguished Awards at Award Nominations – Carroll County Historical Society.

This year we will hear from A. Nicholas Powers, Curator of Collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. The title of his presentation will be “From German Auxiliary to American Artist: The Life and Work of Frederick Kemmelmeyer”.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, some 3,000 of the 30,000 German troops fighting for the British cause chose to remain in America. Among them was Frederick Kemmelmeyer, a surgeon’s assistant who deserted British forces as they pulled out of Charleston, South Carolina. Kemmelmeyer re-emerged from the war as an itinerant artist working in Baltimore, western Maryland, and the Shenandoah Valley, with a surviving body of work that tracks his evolution from a cultural German to a visually-literate German-American citizen. In addition to an impressive body of portraiture, including one subject from Carroll County, Kemmelmeyer produced genre paintings replacing recognizable images of European monarchs with American heroes like George Washington. In addition to exploring Kemmelmeyer’s life and extant works, this lecture will also preview the MSV’s upcoming semi-quincentennial exhibition Revolutionary Valley, which will feature works by the artist painted in the Shenandoah Valley.

The menu will be released shortly. The cost is $45 for members, $55 for non-members. Please contact Laura Bankard to reserve your place today! Reservations and payments need to be received by October 14.

Currently there are two Exclusive Sponsorships available:

• Food Sponsorship – $500
• Speaker Sponsorship – $500

We look forward to seeing you on October 28th!