Cooley Alum Donates Paintings to Law School

Thomas M. Cooley Law School - Practical Legal Scholarship Since 1972

Cooley Law School Academics

May 13, 2008

Associate Dean William Weiner thanks Cooley alumnus, Steven L. Haas, for his gift of two portraits by Mathias J. Alten, which he donated to the law school.

Cooley alumnus Steven L. Maas (Smith Class, 1985) of Grandville, MI, donated two portraits by Mathias J. Alten to the Grand Rapids campus of Cooley Law School.

Mathias Alten was a well-known painter who lived in Grand Rapids at the turn of the century and was influenced by the Impressionists. His portraits of Judge Loyal Edwin Knappen, and his wife, Amelia Isabelle Knappen, now hang across from the Reference Desk in the GR Law Library.

Judge Knappen, who was born in Hastings, MI in 1854, served as the Prosecuting Attorney in both Barry and Kent Counties before ascending to the bench. He first was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelot to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, and later was appointed by President William Howard Taft to serve on the Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. He was also President of the Grand Rapids Bar Association from 1905 to 1906. Judge Knappen met his wife, Amelia Kenyon, when she was a public school teacher, and they married in 1876.

Steven Maas, an avid art collector, found the two paintings at a small auction house and after researching them, decided to donate them to the law school. Associate Dean William Weiner who heads the Art at Cooley committee was very pleased to receive the works by Matthias Alten. The school had recently purchased another painting by Alten which is displayed on the fifth floor of the GR Law Center.

This Page was last updated on: 05/22/2008