From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Born in Louisville, KY, Irvin Webster St. Clair, Sr. was the first African American to earn a fine arts degree from Indiana University. He was one of 50 students to graduate in 1907 from Central High School in Louisville. I. W. St. Clair, Sr. was a painter and educator. In 1958, he had a one-man show at the Crespi Gallery in New York.

While also creating his artwork, St. Clair was a teacher and principal of schools in Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky. He died in Washington, D.C. and is buried there in the Glenwood Cemetery.

I. W. St. Clair was the son of Mitchell and Frances St. Clair. His first wife was Lucille E. Weaver, whom he married in 1918; they had a son named Irvin Emerson St. Clair (1920-1967). I. W. and Lucille St. Clair divorced in 1937. The following year, I. W. St. Clair married Sadie L. Daniel in North Carolina. 

For more, see Who's Who in Colored America. 1933-37; "Fifty graduated from colored high school," The Courier-Journal, 6/22/1907, p. 3; "Divorces granted," The Courier-Journal, 12/24/1937, p. 18; Irvin W. St. Clair within "Speed shows work of British painters," The Courier-Journal, 11/16/1958, p. 111; Irvin E. St. Clair in the Indiana Birth Certificates and the Indian Death Certificates, both in Ancestry; Sadie L. Daniel in the North Carolina Marriage Records in Ancestry; "Ex-principal in Louisville, I. W. St. Clair, dies at 81," The Courier-Journal, 1/5/1971, p. 19; and Irvin Webster St. Clair at Find A Grave.