Painting of the Day, January 29, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Lee Greene Richards grew up in Salt Lake City on the same city block as such noted artists as Mahonri Young, John W. Clawson, and Alma Wright. Richards was among the first group of Utah artists who went to Paris for training. He studied at the Academie Julian in 1901 and then at the Academie des Beaux-Arts; a number of his paintings were accepted to the highly regarded Paris Salon.

Lee Greene Richards (1878-1950), Big Cottonwood Stream (1932), oil on canvas, 39-1/2 x 32 in. Credit: Springville Museum of Art Lee Greene Richards trained to paint portraiture in the academic style, using tonal colors of brown, gray and black. When his portrait commissions diminished with the advent of the Great Depression, he turned to landscape work. He also worked on projects for the WPA; they can be seen in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol. Painting landscapes allowed Richards to use broader brush strokes and the brilliant colors found in the imagery of the Wasatch mountains in autumn.

Richards studied with Utah artist James T. Harwood and once said that “I got as much from Harwood as from any teacher that I had afterwards in Paris.”

Read more about Harwood:

Painting of the Day, January 20, 2012

Painting of the Day, January 28, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Zanes Grey’s most popular and well-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage, was published in 1912. The book was made into films five times starting in 1918 with the last version starring Ed Harris in 1996.  Similarly, the book has never been out of print with dozens of re-prints. Book covers for many of the editions were painted by popular illustrators of the time.  Among the most interesting are the covers by Douglas Duer (1887-1964) who studied with William Merritt Chase and Howard Pyle, and Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), who illustrated many books including The Oregon Trail.

Credit: E-bayCredit: E-bayCredit: davidrecommendsCredit: abebooks

Image of the Day, January 24, 2012

By Donna Poulton

“Well, when I was asked to do a nickel, I felt I wanted to do something totally American—a coin that could not be mistaken for any other country's coin. It occurred to me that the buffalo, as part of our western background, was 100% American…” –James Earle Fraser

Credit: collectors weeklyIn my opinion, the buffalo nickel is the most beautiful American coin ever minted. Artist James Earle Fraser designed the coin with an Indian head on the front and a buffalo on the back.  Both are in profile. The coin was first released in 1913 and then taken out of circulation in 1938. It was beautifully sculpted with more relief than other coins, but because the relief was so prominent, it wore down more quickly than other coins with more flattened motifs.

Credit: collectors weekly

Painting of the Day, January 22, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Alyce Frank, El Salto, 2010, oil on canvas, 29 x 22 in. Credit: Fenix Gallery Alyce Frank didn't begin painting … until she and her family moved to an adobe morado built by the Penitentes in Arroyo Hondo, a small village outside of Taos, New Mexico. Transfixed by the beauty of the countryside near her home and inspired by the achievements of the German Expressionists and the Fauves, Frank, then 43, began painting New Mexican landscapes in the bold colors and expressionist style which have become her trademark. "Within 20 miles from my house, I can paint high mountain scenery, the snow line, the tree line where it is bare; I can paint the gorge of the Rio Grande, high desert and rock canyons. There are also orchards and farmland because of the irrigated valleys that the Spanish have developed. And then," she adds, "we have this beautiful light." --C.M., University of Chicago Magazine/October 1993

Alyce Frank, Grande Canyon Soft Colors, oil on linen, 30 x 30 in. Credit: Fenix Gallery

Painting of the Day, January 21, 2012

From new exhibition: Edgar Payne: The Scenic Journey

By Donna Poulton

Edgar Payne, Sunset, Canyon de Chelly, 1916. Oil on canvas, 28 x 34 in. Mark C. Pigott Collection. Credit: bestsellingindividualartists A career-spanning retrospective of the work of Edgar Payne (1883-1947) titled Edgar Payne: The Scenic Journey is opening at the Crocker Art Museum February 11^th and will run through May 6^th, 2012. Payne was a gifted California artist who spent much of his time painting in the desert southwest.

Edgar Alwin Payne, Navajo Riders, after 1929, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 in. Collection of Charles D. Miller. Credit: AFANews.comMore than 80 signature paintings and drawings, “as well as additional objects from the artist’s studio, trace Payne’s artistic development as he traveled the world in search of magnificent settings.” The Crocker's Chief Curator and Associate Director, Scott A. Shields, Ph.D., curated this exhibition, which was organized by the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and is the lead author for the exhibition catalogue.

Watch Edgar Payne: The Scenic Journey on PBS. See more from KBDI.

Other posts on Edgar Payne:

Painting of the Day, November 14, 2011