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Taos Painters: Harold von Schmidt (1893 - 1982)
Harold Von Schmidt was a popular illustrator of western magazine stories, and was particularly known for his historical action scenes.
Born in Alameda, California, the son of a clipper ship captain, Von Schmidt was orphaned at age five. He was raised by his grandfather, who had been a Forty-Niner, and an aunt who recognized his artistic talent. A physically vigorous teenager, Von Schmidt found summer work as a cowboy and lumber jack. Later in his twenties, he became a member of the US rugby team at the 1920 Olympics.
By age eighteen, Von Schmidt had enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and by age 20 he had published his first cover illustration in Sunset magazine. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1915 to 1918 during which time he also worked at the Foster and Kleiser commercial art company and did several paintings for the US Navy.
At Foster and Kleiser, Von Schmidt met Maynard Dixon who also worked there for a time. He offered Dixon his services as a model so he could observe the older artist at work and study his paintings firsthand. Impressed with the young artist's work, Dixon took on Von Schmidt as an informal student for about a year. In 1919, Dixon, Von Schmidt and several other artist friends formed the short-lived Hammer and Tongs Club to exchange advice and criticism and to exhibit their work.
In 1924, Von Schmidt moved to New York to study with Harvey Dunn at the Grand Central Art School. From this time on, his illustration career blossomed, and his work frequently appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Colliers, American, and other magazines. He was best known for western actions scenes painted in a realistic style clearly derived from Dunn and other students of Howard Pyle.
Although most of his work was illustration, Von Schmidt did execute non-commercial work on commission, including Gold Rush themed murals for the California Governor's Office, and Civil War paintings for the US Military Academy at West Point. During the Second World War, Von Schmidt worked as an artist correspondent for King Features Syndicate. In 1948, he was selected as a founding faculty member at the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut. He died at his home in Westport in 1982.
Haroldvonschmidt.com ~
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Taos Painters: Herman Wendelborg Hansen (1854 - 1924)
Herman W. Hansen was one of the earliest fine artists to popularize cowboy action scenes and other Wild West imagery.
Born in Dithmarschen, Denmark (now Germany) Hansen showed artistic promise early on, and his father, a draftsman, sent him to Hamburg at age 16 to study with a painter of battle scenes. In 1876 he went to England for study, but stories of the American West had piqued his imagination and he emigrated to New York the next year. He worked as a commercial illustrator in New York and then Chicago where he also took classes at the Art Institute. In 1879 one of the western railroads sent him to paint advertising scenes in the Dakotas, giving Hansen his first taste of the West.
Herman Wendelborg Hansen Boss of the Ranch Etching
Herman Wendelborg Hansen, Boss of the Ranch, Etching, 5
Hermanhansen.com ~
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Taos Painters: Augustus William Dunbier (1888 - 1977)
Gus Dunbier was known for his colorful impressionist landscape paintings.
Dunbier was born to a German-immigrant family on their farm in Polk County, Nebraska. The family returned to Germany in 1899, and in 1907 Dunbier enrolled at the Royal Academy in Dusseldorf. He studied with the Impressionist, Adolf Munzer, until the outbreak of World War I when he returned to the United States.
Dunbier enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago for the winter of 1914-1915, studying with Walter Ufer. He served in the Army during the War, followed by a year in New York painting with George Luks. Dunbier then set up a studio in Omaha, Nebraska and established himself as a full-time easel painter. In addition to landscapes, he painted portrait commissions, did restoration work for the Joslyn Art Museum, and taught classes at the Museum, the YMCA, and his own studio.
Dunbier traveled extensively, painting most of his canvases on location. In 1920 Ufer invited him to visit Taos something he continued to do for many summers through the remainder of his life. Ufer and E.I. Couse sponsored Dunbier's membership in the Salmagundi Club.
The summers of 1926 and 1928 found Dunbier in Sitka, Alaska, and in 1930 he began painting trips to Arizona and California. From 1963 to 1970 he spent every winter but two painting in Tucson. When his son was at Oxford University in the 1950s and early 1960s he made several painting trips to Europe. He also enjoyed painting on the Northeast and Northwest coasts and in Mexico. Despite all of his travels, the majority of his paintings were Nebraska landscapes and his views of winter on the prairies were especially popular.
Augustusdunbierpaintings.com ~
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Taos Painters: Edgar Samuel Paxson (1852 - 1919)
E.S. Paxson was an early Montana painter of western frontier life and Indian portraits.
Paxson was born in East Hamburg, New York, near Buffalo. After his schooling, he worked in his father's carriage business painting carriages and lettering signs. There is no evidence he had any other art training.
Paxson longed for the kind of western adventure he read about as a youth, and at age 25 he left his wife and child in Buffalo and headed for Montana Territory. There he worked as a ranch hand, stage driver, hunter, guide, military scout and other frontier jobs that immersed him in the work and experience of western settlement.
In 1879 he sent for his family and moved to Deer Lodge, Montana where he painted signs, theater backdrops, saloon decorations, and other commercial art. In 1881 the Paxsons settled in Butte where the mining boom provided more business opportunity. He continued to do commercial painting, but he also established a studio and spent more time at easel painting. Paxon served for ten years in the Montana National Guard and spent eight months in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In 1905, he moved to Missoula where he lived the remainder of his life.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Paxson made his living primarily from easel painting. He worked in oil and watercolor in a detailed, representational style similar to that of Charles M. Russell who became a close friend. In 1899, he completed his most famous painting, a six by ten foot canvas entitled Custer's Last Battle on the Little Big Horn. He started researching the battle shortly after arriving in Montana, interviewing Indians who had participated in it and soldiers who had first arrived on the scene. It took Paxson six years to complete the painting which he then toured around the eastern US, charging twenty-five cents to view it.
In 1911, Paxson received a commission to paint six murals of Montana history for the State Senate chambers in Helena. The next year, the Missoula County commission hired him to paint eight murals for the county courthouse showing scenes from the Lewis and Clark expedition and early pioneer life. Paxson was considered especially qualified for this work because he had both observed and participated in the settlement of Montana and his paintings were said to capture the true appearance of that time and place.
Edgarsamuelpaxson.com ~
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Taos Painters: Charles Bird King (1785 - 1862)
Charles Bid King was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1785, of Deborah Bird and Captain Zebulon King. Charles's family had moved west but his father was killed by Indians near Marietta, Ohio. Thus, Charles and his mother returned to Newport, Rhode Island. After studying under Samuel King in Newport, Charles headed to New York at the age of fifteen to study under the portrait painter Edward Savage, and later on to London to study under Benjamin West and Thomas Sully. In 1816, Charles closed his studio in Philadelphia and moved to Washington D.C. where he became the
Charlesbirdking.com ~
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Taos Painters: Joseph Amadeus Fleck (1892-1977)
Joseph Amadeus Fleck was born in the village of Sziklos, in Austro-Hungary, in 1892. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Institute of Applied Arts) in Vienna, where he studied lithography, etching and engraving. Afterwards, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, where he studied under two teacher, Hans Tichi and Rudolph Bacher, who were members of the Austrian Succession Group that included Gustav Klimt.
World War came in 1914, and Fleck was drafted into the Army a year later and deployed to the Italian front. Luckily for him, his artistic skills earned him an unofficial position as the regimental artist and, upon his return to Vienna after his first tour of duty, he was given a position painting patriotic images and portraits of notable government and military figures. After the cessation of hostilities, he finished his studies at the Academy of Fine Art and then, several years later, emigrated to the United States.
His first stop was Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked as the chief designer of Tiffany's stained-glass operation there. He painted a number of portraits of important personages around Kansas City, including the mayor, before he attended an art exhibition that would forever change his life.
Joseph Fleck Oil Painting Young Man with Sombrero
Joseph Fleck, Young Man with Sombrero, Oil on Canvas, c. 1931, 20
Josephfleck.com ~
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