Kimet's Lock House

John E. Berninger, born on December 18, 1896, was a prominent artist who lived and worked his entire life in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1926, he was a member of the first class to study under Walter Emerson Baum, a Pennsylvanian Impressionist painter who later opened his own school of art in Allentown, now known as The Baum School of Art. Berninger became an instructor at the school in 1932. In 1935, Baum founded the Allentown Art Museum, and Berninger became its first curator in 1936. His Allentown home became a haven for local artists to visit, talk, and paint with one another. Berninger remained involved in the local community, and in the mid-1950's, he was asked to paint a series of calendars issued by The Morning Call, the Lehigh Valley's local newspaper that is still in print today.

Berninger spent the last forty years of his life painting regularly with his good friend Karl Buesgen, a local impressionist landscape artist, music teacher, and church organist. From the 1940's onward, they would spend every Sunday afternoon painting together until Berninger's death in July 1981.

Kimmet's Lock House is a former locktender's house along the Lehigh Canal that still stands today as part of Kimmet's Lock Park in Allentown, mere blocks from Berninger's former home.