Circle of/Follower of EDGAR ALWIN PAYNE Oil on canvas

Circle of/Follower of EDGAR ALWIN PAYNE (American 1883-1947)
Tuna Boats in Brittany Harbor
Oil on canvas
Bears signature lower right "EDGAR PAYNE"
12 inches x 16 inches

Provenance:
Private Midwest collection, Omaha, Nebraska

Born in Washburn, Missouri, in 1883, Edgar Alwin Payne had a desire to travel the world.  During his lifetime he would end up having crisscrossed the United States, travel to Mexico, Canada, Europe, and spend a summer in the Alps.  However, the part of the world that appealed to him the most was the American West.  Payne left home when he was 14 years old and to earn a living he would paint houses, signs, portraits and local theater sets.  He found himself in Chicago where he enrolled at the Art Institute for a time but soon withdrew and as such always considered himself self-taught.  In 1909, he had found his way to California and spent several months painting at Laguna Beach.  In 1915, Payne made his first trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  He would return to this place to paint the beauty of the unspoiled Sierra and he glorified the area’s majestic peaks and cobalt blue lakes.  He executed a good amount of paintings depicting Indians on horseback riding through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Indeed a Sierra Nevada mountain lake, Lake Payne, was named for him.  The Sierra Nevada paintings would become one of his hallmarks.  However, Payne was also drawn to Europe and would end up living there for two years at which time he exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1923 where he earned a honorable Mention. In Europe Payne would paint a variety of subjects but it was the colorful fishing boats of Concarneau Harbor in Brittany, France (such as the offered lot) and the picturesque sailing vessels of Chioggia, Venice, Italy that most marked his European painting experience.  His first major commission was in 1917 when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad asked him to paint the southwest along the railroads’ trek from Albuquerque to California. This commission would solidify him as an artist and forever link him to Western America.  He was involved in the formation of the Laguna Beach Art Association and became its first president in 1920. He died in Hollywood, California in 1947. His works can be found in museums coast-to-coast such as the Laguna Art Museum, the Chicago Art Museum, Southwest Museum of Los Angeles and the National Academy of Design Collection.