 The following information was submitted by the artist's family:
A native of Pittsburgh (born November 3, 1905), he received his initial training at the Pittsburgh Institute of Art both in commercial and fine art. He later continued his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. He worked as a commercial artist in Chicago and then continued a long and rewarding career in New York City, in both fine and commercial art, working on such accounts as Coca Cola, Buster Brown Shoes, and for Life and Post magazines.
In 1965 Kortner moved to Delray Beach, Florida to pursue his passion of teaching art. He and his wife Helen operated the Delray Art Center for twenty five years, where he taught his techniques of painting to large and small classes, beginners and andvanced students, in the back of the Center. Around 1989, Kortner retired from operating the Delray Art Center but he didn't retire from painting and from teaching students. Quote: "Talent is really ambition to my way of thinking. In other words, one has as much talent as ambition. It is a matter of degree and depends largely upon one's desire to succeed and produce."
He was a life-long member of the American Watercolor Society and the Allied Artists of America.
Kortner died on June 25, 1999, and many of his originals, watercolor and oil, remain on permanent display at Abbey Delray South in Delray Beach, Florida.
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