Lon Megargee

Love Honor Obey?

ca. 1940

Lon Megargee 1883-1960 "The Sheepherder" Wood block print Signed in plate, lower right Image size: 10 x 10 inches Frame size 22 x 22 inches Creator of Stetson's hat logo "Last Drop from his Hat" Lon Megargee 1883 - 1960 At age 13, Lon Megargee came to Phoenix in 1896 following the death of his father in Philadelphia. For several years he resided with relatives while working at an uncle’s dairy farm and at odd jobs. He returned to Philadelphia in 1898 – 1899 in order to attend drawing classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Back in Phoenix in 1899, he decided at the age of 16 to try to make his living as a cowboy. Lon moved to the cow country of Wickenburg, Arizona where he was hired by Tex Singleton’s Bull Ranch. He later joined the Three Bar R. . . and after a few years, was offered a job by Billy Cook of the T.T. Ranch near New River. By 1906, Megargee had learned his trade well enough to be made foreman of Cook’s outfit. Never shy about taking risks, Lon soon left Cook to try his own hand at ranching. He partnered with a cowpuncher buddy, Tom Cavness, to start the El Rancho Cinco Uno at New River. Unfortunately, the young partners could not foresee a three-year drought that would parch Arizona, costing them their stock and then their hard-earned ranch. Breaking with his romantic vision of cowboy life, Megargee finally turned to art full time. He again enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and then the Los Angeles School of Art and Design during 1909 – 1910. The now well-trained student took his first trip to paint “en plein air” (outdoors) to the land of Hopi and Navajo peoples in northern Arizona. After entering paintings from this trip in the annual Territorial Fair at Phoenix, in 1911, he surprisingly sold his first oil painting to a major enterprise – the Santa Fe Railroad . . . Lon received $50 for “Navajos Watching the Santa Fe Train.” He soon sold the SFRR ten paintings over the next two years. For forty years the railroad was his most important client, purchasing its last painting from him in 1953. In a major stroke of good fortune during his early plein-air period, Megargee had the opportunity to paint with premier artist, William R. Leigh (1866 – 1955). Leigh furnished needed tutoring and counseling, and his bright, impressionistic palette served to enhance the junior artist’s sense of color and paint application. In a remarkable display of unabashed confidence and personable salesmanship, Lon Megargee, at age 30, forever linked his name with Arizona art history. Despite the possibility of competition from better known and more senior artists, he persuaded Governor George Hunt and the Legislature in 1913 to approve 15 large, historic and iconic murals for the State Capitol Building in Phoenix. After completing the murals in 1914, he was paid the then princely sum of roughly $4000. His Arizona statehood commission would launch Lon to considerable prominence at a very early point in his art career. Following a few years of art schooling in Los Angeles, and several stints as an art director with movie studios, including Paramount, Megargee turned in part to cover illustrations for popular Western story magazines in the 1920s. In the 1920s, as well, Lon began making black and white prints of Western types and of genre scenes from woodblocks. These prints he generally signed and sold singly. In 1933, he published a limited edition, signed and hard-cover book (about 250 copies and today rare)containing a group of 28 woodblock images. Titled “The Cowboy Builds a Loop,” the prints are noteworthy for strong design, excellent draftsmanship, humanistic and narrative content, and quality. Subjects include Southwest Indians and cowboys, Hispanic men and women, cattle, horses, burros, pioneers, trappers, sheepherders, horse traders, squaw men and ranch polo players. Megargee had a very advanced design sense for simplicity and boldness which he demonstrated in how he used line and form. His strengths included outstanding gestural (action) art and strong figurative work. He was superb in design, originality and drawing, as a study of his prints in the Hays collection reveals. In 1944, he published a second group of Western prints under the same title as the first. Reduced to 16 images from the original 28 subjects, and slightly smaller, Lon produced these prints in brown ink on a heavy, cream-colored stock. He designed a sturdy cardboard folio to hold each set. For the remainder of his life, Lon had success selling these portfolios to museum stores, art fairs and shows, and to the few galleries then selling Western art. Drawing on real working and life experiences, Lon Megargee had a comprehensive knowledge, understanding and sensitivity for Southwestern subject matter. Noted American modernist, Lew Davis...

Title: Misfit Artist: Greg Singley Signed original signature Archival Pigment Print, 100% Rag Paper 300 gm Paper size: 24 x34 inches Image Size: 20 x 30 inches Greg Singley Greg Singley – was born in 1950 in Greensboro, Alabama. He received his Associates Degree at Walker Collage Jasper Alabama and furthered his college education at the University of South Alabama, Mobile Alabama. He attended the revered Ringling School of Art for his art training in Sarasota Florida and graduated with honors with a certificate in commercial illustration. In 1978 Singley moved to Phoenix Arizona to pursue his passion for western art and illustration. He worked for several years as an art director for Phoenix Public News and as a freelance illustrator and at the same time experienced sales of Native American and Western Landscape in several Arizona galleries which include Ratliff Williams Gallery, Sedona Arizona, Fagan Peterson Fine Art, Scottsdale and the Dan May Gallery, Scottsdale Arizona. After a foray into freelance illustration Singley sought representation for his varied abilities and interest in fine art and found the Phoenix Art Group...

SHIPPING CHARGES INCLUDE SHIPPING, PACKAGING & **INSURANCE** Greg Singley , born 1950- Artist Statement: When the sun sets in the desert South West, thin...

SHIPPING CHARGES INCLUDE SHIPPING, PACKAGING & **INSURANCE** Greg Singley , born 1950- Artist Statement: When the sun sets in the desert South West, thin...

Albert Pels (1910-1998) Painting of a group of figures, c. 20th century. 12 x 16 in. Framed dimensions: 19 1/2 x 23 1/4 in. Albert Pels was an art educator and painter of figures, genre scenes, urban and rural images, and illustration. He also did murals and worked in the mediums of oil, fresco, and watercolor. He was born on May 7, 1910, in Cincinnati, Ohio and died at the age of eighty-eight on January 25, 1998 in New York City. Albert Pels was the son of Samuel and Frieda Pels. He had two children, Joan Barbara and Richard J.A. with his first wife Gertrude Ethel Jaeckel. He later married Yolanda Zemfler, a painter of impressionist art. While in Ohio, Pels attended the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1931 where he won several scholarships. After moving to New York, he continued his education at the Art Students League, Beaux Arts and the American School. At the Art Students League, Pels studied under Thomas Hart Benton, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Alexander Brook. Under the tutelage of these mentors, Pels evolved his technique and style. Pels was a member of the National Society of Mural Painters, the Salmagundi Club, and the Society of Independent Artists. He was on the board of directors of the Arts Students League in 1939, as well as, on the board the WPA Artists...

Vintage American modernist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.

A striking large-scale abstract expressionist figurative acrylic on canvas by Bay Area artist Julius Wasserstein (American, 1924-1985). Two abstracted figures, a man in a suit and a woman in a blue wedding dress...

Waddell's paintings are a combination of rough marks, thick paint, transparent elegant strokes, and, on a few occasions a slow, hard line scratched into the canvas. You can feel the ...