Leaving his Missouri home at an early age, Edgar Payne spent most of his life traveling with his wife, the artist Elsie Palmer, and their daughter Evelyn. Most closely associated with California, he also had homes in Chicago and near New York. Yet his artistic pilgrimages to the Southwest and to the Sierras shaped the view of Western landscapes in the American imagination. Originally published in 1941, Payne's book "Composition of Outdoor Painting" maintains its hold as a valued resource for "plein air" painters today, granting him a reach beyond many of his contemporaries.
Living on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks, young Payne knew the wide world was waiting for him. At nineteen, he began his rambles supporting himself with a variety of commercial painting jobs. Landing in Chicago, he spent two weeks studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, leaving him essentially self-taught. With his first trip to California in 1909, he briefly encountered his future wife in San Francisco. He met her again back in Chicago and the two soon married. Legend has it that on the day of the wedding, what was scheduled as a morning ceremony was postponed until afternoon because "the light was perfect." Always putting Edgar's artistic needs first, Elsie accepted the delay.
In the early twentieth century, companies employed artists for advertising campaigns, encouraging potential customers to picture themselves in an alluring scene. Thus the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad commissioned Payne to paint views of the train line's territory. The Payne's went to the Four Corners area, including, most notably, Canyon de Chelly. In works that would anticipate the classic Westerns of John Ford, the artist depicted the great rock formations often with Navajo riders on horseback. Using the Impressionist representation of light, Payne was able to achieve the sense of openness unique to the Southwest.
Increasingly successful, he was summoned by the Congress Hotel in San Francisco to paint a large mural on muslin in 1917. This project was completed away from the site, and the husband-and-wife managers employed many fledgling area artists. The couple moved to Laguna Beach, where Payne initiated the Laguna Beach Art Association. As the years went by, he became affiliated with many of the major California art organizations, including the California Art Club of which he was president.
The Payne's traveled to Europe in 1922 and spent 2 years visiting a number of locations. Among the artist's favorite subjects were colorful harbor scenes of Brittany, which was popularized by artists many decades previous. It was a scene of the Alps that received honorable mention in the Paris Salon of 1923. For his paintings, Payne made numerous studies and sketches, so that the appearance of a fresh view was based upon many hours of observation. The desired effect, however, was to leave no trace of the effort: "Art comes into being in that abstract interval between a thought and a reality, and no one -- not even the artist who created it -- can premeasured the influences that caused it."
Back in North America, Edgar, Elsie, and Evelyn went on painting expeditions to various mountain settings, including Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. The Sierras became so synonymous with Payne that a mountain lake in the Humphrey Basin was named after him. Rather than roughing it, the family erected elaborate campsites and often brought along a cook.
With fewer commissions during the Depression, the Payne's made Los Angeles their permanent home. However, with the marriage of their daughter, Edgar and Elsie separated; although Elsie remarried, they never divorced. He moved to Hollywood to a small studio home on Seward Street and, during this Hollywood period, made a documentary "Sierra Journey." He also wrote "Composition of Outdoor Painting" (now in its seventh edition) that revealed some of his secret painting techniques. In 1946, Elsie moved back in with him after a fourteen year separation in order to nurse him in his final stages of cancer.
Exhibited: California State Fairs, 1917 (prize), 1918 (prize); the Sacramento State Fair, 1918 (gold); Sacramento, 1919 (medal); Art Institute of Chicago, 1920 (prize); Southwest Museum, 1921 (prize); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Annuals, 1921-22, 1925; Paris Salon, 1923; National Academy of Design, 1929 (prize); Golden Gate Exposition, San Francisco, 1939; California Artists Club, 1947 (prize).
Works Held: American Theatre, Chicago (mural); Art Institute of Chicago; Nebraska Clay County Courthouse, Brazil, Indiana; Empress Theatre, Chicago (mural); Hendricks County Courthouse, Danville, Indiana; Herron Art Institute; National Academy of Design; Indianapolis Museum; Nebraska Artists Association, Lincoln; Pasadena Art
Institute; Queen Theatre, Houston; Peoria Society of Allied Artists; Southwest Museum, Los Angeles; Springville Museum of Art, Utah; University of Nebraska Galleries.
Further Reading: Artists in California, 1786-1940, Edan Milton Hughes, Hughes Publishing, San Francisco, 1986.; California Grandeur and Genre: From the Collection of James L. Coran and Walter A. Nelson-Rees, Iona M. Chelette, Katherine Plake Hough and Will South, Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California, 1991.; Early Artists in Laguna Beach: the Impressionists, Janet Blake Dominik, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California, 1986.; The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 3. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds., Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols.
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