Generations of Vittur family continue to be artists

   His grandpa created great works of art that adorned churches across the country. His father followed suit, taking the family craft to hundreds of theaters and sanctuaries around the state. But it was Bob Vittur, the third generation of the family of artists, who brought art to the masses, not in churches, but the Sunday funnies.
    The Vittur legacy began in the late 19th century when Josef Vittur, Bob Vittur's Austrian-born grandfather, immigrated to America and began a successful career painting grand allegorical scenes in the walls and ceilings of churches around the country. Josef's son, Robert, later joined the family business, eventually moving to Lima where he made his living painting some of the area's best known spaces. By the time of his death from cancer in 1944, Robert had contributed works to dozens of churches and auditoriums around the country. Close to home, his works decorated Bellefontaine Methodist Church, Bellevue's Carnegie Library and St. Rose Catholic and Market Street Presbyterian churches and the Empire and Orpheum theaters in Lima.
    It was in the shadow of those two artists that Bob Vittur chipped out his own career, creating art for a very different audience.
    Bob was born in Los Angeles in 1915. His family moved to Lima when he was 3 years old and took up residence at 1240 W. Market St., where his father had built an artist studio behind the garage. He honed his artistic skills at Lowell elementary and Central High School. At 20, he left Lima for Columbus, where he took a job as a staff artist for The Columbus Dispatch. He left for a stint in the Marine Corps from 1942 to 1945. He later returned to Columbus and began working with cartoonist Dudley Fisher.
    Fisher began his cartooning career in 1924 with a daily feature created for the Columbus Dispatch titled "Jolly Jingles." In 1937, he launched a Sunday comic about life with a farm family titled "Right Around Home." Out of that strip came a daily strip called "Myrtle." Fisher continued to draw both strips until his death in 1951, at which point Vittur took over.
    The artist continued to draw the strip until 1964. Coming up       See VITTUR/C2
      VITTUR/from C1
    with ideas for a daily strip was rarely a problem, he explained in a 1952 story for The Lima News.
    "If you sit and look at a blank piece of paper long enough -- while the bills keep rolling in -- an idea pops up eventually," he said.
    Despite his efforts, Vittur's name was never as big as "Myrtle." The comics continued to carry Fisher's name, in accordance with his widow's wishes. The copyrights also remained with Fisher's family. Vittur died in 1973, at age 59.
    But the family's legacy does not end there. Bob Vittur's niece, Anne Vittur Kennedy, has managed to follow in the footsteps of her famous clan. The Lewis Center artist is a children's book illustrator.
    Kennedy, the daughter of Bob's brother Art Vittur, began her professional career as a music teacher. In 1982, she shifted her attention to illustrating childrens books. Since then, she has illustrated a number of published books, including "Callie Cat, Ice Skater" and "Best of Both Nests." More recently, she has written and illustrated her own book, "One Shining Star," for Zonderkidz Press. That book is a retelling of the Christmas story in bright, cartoon illustrations.
    So in the end, the last in the line of Vittur artists has merged the cartoon work of her uncle with the sacred subject of her grandfather and great-grandfather and kept more than 100 years of Vittur family legacy rolling along.