(1866–1939)

Born in Dayton, Ohio, and growing up there, Elanor Colburn studied at the Art Institute of Chicago a total of eight years, and also served for one year, 1900, as an assistant teacher. In addition she studied with William Merritt Chase and Frank Duveneck.

She remained active in Chicago until 1924, when she moved to Laguna Beach, California with her well-known artist daughter, Ruth Eaton Peabody. They built a studio on the South Coast Highway where they lived, painted and taught. In 1927, having recovered from some prolonged spells of illness, she resumed her painting career with seriousness, and having developed an interest in Native American culture, began traveling for subjects including to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. She also painted in Palm Springs, (Primordial Days in Palm Springs); New Mexico (In the Pueblo) and among the Navajos (In the Hogan) and (The Navajo).

Her style is described as “evolving from a type of Impressionism to Dynamic Symmetry”. It differed from the usual definition of Impressionism because it had more abstract forms, often geometric.

Because of two marriages and also using her maiden name, she is listed with a variety of names: Eleanor Eaton (1886-1890); Eleanor Gump (1895-1896); Eleanor Colburn (1900-1903). In 1927, she changed the spelling of her first name to Elanor. Her first husband had the last name of Eaton and was the father of her daughter. Her second husband was Joseph Elliott Colburn, an opthamologist and artist, and she continued using his name even though they divorced in 1915.

Colburn became a member of the Laguna Beach Art Association, which she served as Director from 1926 to 1929, and was also a member of the San Diego Art Guild and the Painters and Sculptors Club of Los Angeles. Exhibition venues included the Cincinnati Art Museum, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego and the John Herron Institute in Indianapolis.

Elanor Colburn died in Laguna Beach on May 7, 1939. Pictured above is a portrait of Elanor Colburn, painted by her daughter, Ruth Peabody.

(1889–1975)

Paul Lauritz was born at Larvik, Norway. He was the son of Lauritz Olsen and his wife Maren Sofie. He first moved to Vancouver, Canada at age 16 to live with relatives. He worked his way west as a commercial artist in Vancouver and Portland before moving to Alaska during the Gold Rush. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles and opened a studio at the Lyceum Theatre. Besides painting, he also taught at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute, and he was the president of the California Art Club.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Crocker Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is represented at The Irvine Museum, San Diego Museum of Art and Carnegie Art Museum (Oxnard, California).

(1810–1874)

Miller was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest of nine children of George W. and Harriet J. Miller. Miller’s father was a merchant and tavern keeper in central Baltimore, and also had a farm in Hawkins Point. Miller attended a private school in Baltimore, John D. Craig’s Academy, but did not receive formal art instruction there. He may have received his first lessons in art from Thomas Sully. In 1832, with the financial support of his family and art patrons in Baltimore, Miller traveled to Paris to study art. He was admitted as an auditor to life drawing classes at the École des Beaux-Arts, and copied paintings in the collections of the Louvre.In 1833, he traveled to Italy, visiting Bologna, Florence, and Venice before settling in Rome, where he studies at the English Life School.During his travels in Europe, he became friends with the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen and studied with the French painter Horace Vernet.

He returned to Baltimore in 1834, where he opened a downtown studio and advertised himself as a painter of portraits and Old Master copies. Professional and financial difficulties may have prompted his decision to move to New Orleans in 1837. The city was a relatively open market for artists, and Miller quickly established a studio on Chartes Street and began receiving orders for portraits. It was in his studio that he met the Scottish aristocrat and adventurer, Sir William Drummond Stewart.

Stewart hired Miller to accompany him and record his hunting journey to the Rocky Mountains.That same year, along with representatives of the American Fur Company, they ventured as far as Fort William and Green River.

After returning to New Orleans later that year, Miller started working up his sketches in watercolors and oils. The scenes and incidents of the hunting journey were the foundation of a series of paintings documenting Native Americans of the United States. In July 1838 Miller was able to arrange an exhibition in New Orleans. In October 1840 he traveled with his paintings to Stewart’s Murthly Castle in Scotland, where a collection of his commissioned work was ultimately hung.

After spending a year in Scotland and another in London, Miller returned to Baltimore in April 1842. He established himself as an acknowledged portrait artist in the city. He died on June 26, 1874.

The “Portrait of the Captain Stewart With Indians by Campfire” captures a moment of quiet negotiations, planning, or possible storytelling around the firelight. Stewart was a distinguished member at any rendezvous and was often surrounded by trappers and Indians. Miller captured a glimpse of nuance in the historical adventures of westward visions in this gem of a painting.

(1886–1953)

F. Winold Reiss was a German-born American artist and graphic designer. He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, the second son of Fritz Reiss (1857–1914) and his wife. He grew up surrounded by art, as his father was a well-known landscape artist and his brother became a sculptor.

Reiss became a portraitist. His philosophy was that an artist must travel to find the most interesting subjects; influenced by his father and his own curiosity, he drew subjects from many peoples and walks of life. In 1913 he immigrated to the United States, where he was able to follow his interest in Native Americans. In 1920 he went West for the first time, working for a lengthy period on the Blackfeet Reservation. Over the years Reiss painted more than 250 works depicting Native Americans. These paintings by Reiss became known more widely beginning in the 1920 and to the 1950s, when the Great Northern Railway commissioned Reiss to do paintings of the Blackfeet which were then distributed widely as lithographed reproductions on Great Northern calendars. In 1931, and 1934-37, Reiss organized a summer art school, also referred to as an artists’ colony near Glacier National Park.