Rebecca Finsel has spent 25 years looking inside the mind of an artist whom she has never once met.

She believes she has discovered an interesting correlation about this man whose Northeast Pennsylvania roots have been mostly unknown until now.

Her new book “Franz Kline in Coal Country” is a revelation about how his later works were inspired by his early life in Lehighton.

“The artistic mind runs in my family, too,” said Finsel, a lifelong resident of Lehighton. “My son Joel, a graduate of Lehighton high school who now lives in North Carolina, co-authored the book with me. My son Daniel is an artist in Los Angeles, and another, Joshua, is a photographer in the Jim Thorpe area. My father, Randolph Rabenold, gave me my love of art and was a friend of Kline’s. He taught art in Jim Thorpe for 40 years. My husband, Glenn, has been my moral support throughout the many years it took to complete this project.”

Finsel’s fascination with Kline grew into a passionate search for clues to solve the mystery of the man behind his paintings.

Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre in 1910 and lived in Lehighton until his father committed suicide. Kline’s mother, steeped in poverty with the burden of raising four children, gave up Franz to an orphanage in Philadelphia. She signed a contract that he was to remain there until he was 18 years old, but she was able to get him back when he turned 15. Franz would visit his hometown during summers for five years previous to his release from the orphanage, so he never really severed his hometown roots.

“Kline attended Lehighton high school and graduated in 1931,” Finsel said. “Contrary to the stereotype that artists are not athletic, Kline played football and baseball and was very good at both. He also was a cartoonist for his school newspaper.”

Kline then became an art major at Boston University, where he aspired to become a professional cartoonist. Instead he was steered into line drawing, magazine illustrations, model portraits and landscape art.

Finsel said that Kline, against his mother’s wishes, did not want to teach art at Lehighton high school. Instead he moved to Greenwich Village in New York to try to make a living selling his works. Unfortunately, his efforts were much of a failure and he lived in abject poverty during the Depression.

“He was often visited in New York by his friends from Lehighton, and this again kept him fondly connected to his hometown.”

Kline returned home during the 1940s and was commissioned to paint a 6-by-14-foot mural that was to he hung over the bar at the American Legion Post 314 in Lehighton. He painted a landscape in bright colors from a bird’s-eye view of the entire town and surrounding area and titled it “Lehighton.”

With deterioration from 70 years of age and faded from cigarette smoke, the American Legion sold the mural in 2016 to the Allentown Art Museum, where it has been restored and is now displayed.

This art piece was not the only work Kline completed for his hometown. In 1933, he painted a jazz mural of silhouettes for the now defunct Graver’s rolling rink. The piece was sold to a collector for $76,582. His “Palmerton, PA” landscape from 1941 is now in the Smithsonian Museum of Art.

“Kline struggled with his personal life,” Finsel said. “He married a woman in New York who was mentally ill and needed full-time care. He returned home to place her under his mother’s custody while he worked on his paintings.

“They had no children and Kline never divorced his wife, even after she was institutionalized later on.”

Kline tired of painting landscapes and real objects. His interests in art evolved into abstract expressions with black-and-white images.

“There came a day when he looked at an enlarged projection on the wall of a rocking chair. He painted a few black lines to depict an abstract expression of the chair,” Finsel said. “It’s been debated, but some believe this was his turning point in his art career.”

She explained that Kline was evasive about the meanings of his abstract works and that his brush strokes in black and white were often “spontaneous,” as she put it and left to the interpretation of the observer.

“He slashed and sloshed his brush, and his art gave off an energy that I feel came from his relationship with the coal country, its industries and trains that come from the environment of his younger life.”

To support Finsel’s theory, many of Kline’s abstract paintings have titles relating to Northeast coal country even though his abstract images on the canvas were difficult to identify with the region.

Kline’s abstract art works became so well-reviewed by critics, his name became known to those from a higher social status.

He was invited to the White House to visit with President John F. Kennedy on May 13, 1962, as part of the reception to welcome the traveling display of the Mona Lisa, but Franz became ill and died two days later.

Today, Franz Kline, who rose out of an obscure existence from Lehighton and Greenwich Village, is revered as one of America’s greatest abstract expressionists.

“Added up, his paintings are worth millions,” Finsel said.

His “Sketch for Riverbed” is now on sale at Christie’s Auction House with a minimum bid set at $55,000. In 1983, Kline’s “Harleman,” named after a close friend, sold at Christie’s for $506,000.

Rebecca Finsel and her son have taken 20 years to write “Franz Kline in Coal Country” and another 10 years to acquire a publisher.

“Well, we didn’t write everyday. Raising children and life got in the way,” she said with a laugh.

Their story brings acclaim to the life of a now famous artist who can be an icon for art students in his former high school and his accomplishments can make the residents of Lehighton more proud of their town’s history.

“Franz Kline in Coal Country” published by Acadia Press is available for purchase at Amazon, Good reads and Google Books.