Robert Templeton (artist)
Robert Templeton | |
---|---|
Born | May 11, 1929 Red Oak, Iowa, U.S. |
Died | July 16, 1991 Woodbury, Connecticut, U.S. | (aged 62)
Occupation(s) | Artist, portrait painter |
Website | www |
Robert Templeton (May 11, 1929 – July 16, 1991) was an American artist. His work includes the civil rights collection "Lest we forget...Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement", highlighting seminal figures from the movement. Templeton painted the portrait of former President Jimmy Carter that is displayed in the Hall of presidents of the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.
Early life
Robert Templeton was born into a farming family in Iowa on May 11, 1929. Due to the Wall Street crash that year, his childhood was difficult.[1] The family depended on growing their own vegetables, supplemented by his father's wages as a WPA worker, and government rice handouts. Their quality of life improved when his father was entrusted with the management of a farm in Montgomery County, Iowa, as a tenant farmer. Templeton later said that all the deprivations of his childhood toughened him rather than defeated him.
Templeton began drawing when he was about 11 years old and recalled how he looked forward to the arrival of The Saturday Evening Post with the cover painting by Norman Rockwell, which contributed to his decision to become an artist.[2] In between school and farming chores he filled his sketchbooks with scenes from the Iowa countryside. His sketches caught the attention of his high school principal, Mary Buffington, who encouraged him to pursue a career in art.
Education
Templeton won a
In Kansas City he came under the influence and tutelage of Thomas Hart Benton, who sat for him for his portrait. Templeton had gone to the Benton home for the sitting, and when the sketch was finished, Benton called in his daughter to get her reaction to the portrait. When she approved, Benton was delighted, and autographed it.
In the summer of 1949 Templeton traveled to
Army service
In 1952, Templeton was drafted into the
Trucking and highway themes
In 1963, Templeton and his then pregnant wife moved back to Iowa. Inspired by the newly constructed superhighway system covering the Midwest, he devoted his energy to creating works with a transportation age theme. He participated both in the Mid America Annual at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and the Annual Iowa Artists Exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center.[3] His work focused on the effect the automobile had on the landscape, and the way we live. One of the recurring images in his work is the long distance trucker, whom he uses as the protagonist of high stress modern man. He experienced the life of a trucker first hand when he accompanied his brother Darwin, who owned a trucking company, on cross-country hauls. The paintings and constructions of trucks and highways were shown in 1964 at the Banfer Gallery in New York under the title L'Homme Machine (Machine Man), and posthumously in 2004 as Life on the Road in the Founders Gallery at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Connecticut.
Connecticut
In 1965, Templeton and his wife purchased a farm in Connecticut to live with their three sons. The Connecticut period was filled with commissions of leaders in government, industry and entertainment, among them presidents
Civil rights period
Templeton continued to add paintings to his Machine-Man series, but in 1967, he was an unwitting participant in an event which inspired him to take his art in a new direction. In the summer of 1967, Templeton was in Detroit painting private portrait commissions, when riots broke out. Templeton recorded the chaos in his sketchbook, observing
In 1971, Templeton was commissioned by
After his experience in the Detroit riots, Templeton devoted more time to paint a record of the leading figures in the
The resulting collection of over thirty paintings was first shown at Emory University with a grant from the Georgia Council of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The title "Lest we forget... Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement" came out of a conversation Templeton had with Dr. Mays,[10] who worried that so many people, their work and sacrifice, might be forgotten someday. Since its first showing in 1986, the collection has toured the country.
Death
At age 62, and after drawing and painting for five decades, Templeton died at his home in Connecticut on July 16, 1991, of natural causes.[11]
References
- ^ Christoffersen, John (January 18, 2009). "Painter had bird's-eye view of civil rights movement". Columbia Missourian. Woodbury, CT: University of Missouri. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013.
- ^ "A Yankee Paints Jimmy Carter, While Georgia Artists Wage Uncivil War". People. February 19, 1979. Archived from the original on March 10, 2011. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
- ^ "The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa · Page 14". The Des Moines Register. April 19, 1964. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
- PDF) on July 14, 2010.
[From 2:00 to 2:30 P.M.:] The President met with: Robert Templeton, portrait painter from Connecticut; Mrs. Robert Templeton; The purpose of the meeting was to sit for a portrait by Mr. Templeton commissioned for the Georgia State Legislature.
- ^ "National Portrait Gallery Hall of Presidents Official Smithsonian Site Showing Robert Templeton's portrait of President Jimmy Carter". Archived from the original on February 10, 2010.
- ^ "TIME Magazine Cover: Mayor Sam Yorty". Time. September 2, 1966. Archived from the original on February 20, 2008.
- ^ "TIME Magazine Cover: Detroit Race Riots". Time. August 4, 1967. Archived from the original on September 11, 2008.
- ^ "The Black Panthers Trial: Courtroom Sketches by Robert Templeton". beinecke.library.yale.edu. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
- ^ a b "A Look Inside the Astonishing Black Panther Murder Trial of 1970–71". Slate. January 30, 2013. Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
- ^ "The art of Robert Templeton: a curator's view". The Christian Science Monitor. January 17, 1986. Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
- ^ "Obituary: Robert Templeton, 62, Presidential Portraitist". The New York Times. Woodbury, CT. Associated Press. July 18, 1991. p. B8. Archived from the original on October 24, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2017.