About the Artist | (1883-1960 American) Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lon Megargee is described as a 'humorous' Western painter, illustrator and graphic artist in the Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West by Peggy and Harold Samuels. He was not a good or willing student, so at the age of thirteen he left Philadelphia for Arizona, where he worked as an exhibition roper in a Wild West show, a bronco buster, a fireman, a poker dealer, a police captain and a rancher. Prior to learning how to paint, he obtained a commission for $7,000 from the first Governor of Arizona (Governor Hunt for fifteen mural paintings for the capitol building (which I appraised many years ago). He later studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, the Art Student's League, Pratt Institute of Art School in Brooklyn and at Cooper Union High School. In 1926 he began exhibiting at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Megargee is best known for the illustrations he produced for the Arizona Brewing Company. They were painted in the 1940's and later donated to Arizona State University's College of Business Administration. One of the four famous paintings "The Dude" remains a missing legend. Betsy Fahlman's hard-bound volume The Cowboy's Dream: The Mythic Life and Art of Lon Megargee was published in 2002. |
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Culture | USA, Arizona |
Style | Stylization |
Medium | Screenprint |
Image size | 11 7/8" height X 14" width |
Paper size | 14" height X 17" width |
Signed | "Lon Megargee" in black permanent marker at viewer's lower right |
Condition | Good to fair, not excellent as small dark spot on white horse and tiny light spot on black horse |
Provenance | CNC |