Howard Terpning

Grandfather Prays To Sun by Howard Terpning

So many times I have looked at the art of Howard Terpning and wished, no prayed, that I could paint like him. I cannot believe that anyone can do with oils what he does. Take a few minutes out of your busy day and enjoy the genius of this man.

Howard Terpning was born November 5, 1927, in Oak Park, Illinois, birthplace of Ernest Hemingway. As a boy he was torn between two ambitions; to become an artist or a pilot. His brother, Jack, fulfilled the later ambition, becoming a B-24 pilot during World War II. Unfortunately, he was lost in New Guinea. The aircraft and crew were recovered in 1974.

In 1945, Terpning joined the Marine Corps and served as an infantryman in China. Afterward, he found educational institutions heavily enrolled with returned war veterans. Through the help of a friend of his father he entered the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. Later, he attended the American Academy of Fine Art.

He tried to find work in New York City but was disappointed and returned to Chicago. Haddon Sundblom who was considered the dean of American illustrators took Terpning on as an apprentice for $35 a week.

After five years he moved to Milwaukee where for three years he painted subjects like farmers on tractors. Deciding it was time to try New York again, he struck out on his own, painting seven days a week, often thirteen hours a day. He averaged eight illustrations a month, a pace that today makes him wonder how he managed.

In all, he worked prolifically as a commercial artist for twenty-five years, seventeen of them in New York. Besides advertising art, he illustrated stories and articles for such publications as McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, and Time. He painted more than eighty move posters, starting with The Guns of Navarone. They include Doctor Zhivago and a reissue of Gone With The Wind and The Sound of Music.

He became restless, however. Though financially rewarding, the commercial work was no longer satisfying to him as an artist. He began painting portraits for his own pleasure. Among the first was Sioux Chief Gall, done for his daughter, Susan.

In the summer of 1974, at age 47, he took a couple of months off from his commercial work and finished three paintings, all on speculation and hope. The feeling of freedom, of painting what he wanted instead of commissioned pieces, made that summer one of the most satisfying of his life as an artist. He sent the canvases to Troy's Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, which sold them in January 1975. That was a turning point in Howard's life. Gradually he reduced his commercial accounts until abandoning his career entirely. In 1976, he moved to Tucson to become a western painter. In just a few years he won the respect and admiration of his peers and a vast following for his works. Today he is considered the premier chronicler of Native American peoples and is one of the giants in his field.

Just paint it!