Painter Carolyn Plochmann, born in 1926 in Toledo, Ohio, is a long-time resident of Carbondale, Illinois. She has been a prolific prizewinner, including eight first prizes at the Toledo Federation of Art Societies from 1942 to 1968, the earliest when the artist was only fifteen years old. In 1951, she received a purchase award from the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; and between 1955 and 1967, seven purchase awards from the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Indiana. Plochmann's youthful achievements were evidenced in teaching positions in 1946-1947 in the School of Design, Toledo Museum of Art, when she was yet a student herself there from 1943 to 1947. She would receive her B.A. degree in 1947 from the University of Toledo. Plochmann also taught at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in 1949-1950, after gaining her M.F.A. degree in 1949 from the University Iowa, Iowa City, where she was a George W. Stevens fellow from the Toledo Museum of Art. While in Carbondale, Plochmann studied anatomical dissection there. In 1950, she also studied in Woodstock, New York with Alfeo Faggi.