Canyon de Chelly – Edgar Alwin Payne

Description

Edgar Alwin Payne
Payne was born near Cassville, Barry County, Missouri, in the heart of the Ozarks. Cassville is in southwest Missouri, near the Arkansas border. According to the U.S. Census of 1900, he resided with his parents, two sisters and five brothers in Prairie Grove, Washington County, Arkansas; his Alabama-born father was employed as a carpenter. Edgar’s occupation was listed as “carpenter, apprentice.”

Leaving home on several occasions, Payne painted houses, signs, portraits, murals, and local theater stage sets, to pay his way. Traveling through the Ozarks, then around the Southeast and Midwest, he finally wound up in Chicago, and enrolled to study portrait art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He remained only two weeks at the institute, finding it too structured. He preferred instead to be self-taught, relying on practice and his own sense of direction.

Struggling at first, he soon exhibited a group of landscape works, painted on a small easel, at the Palette and Chisel Club. During this period he also obtained the occasional mural work to supplement his income.

He made his way to California for the first time in 1909, at the age of 26. He spent several months painting at Laguna Beach, then headed to San Francisco. In San Francisco he met other artists, including commercial artist Elsie Palmer (1884–1971). He returned to California for a second time in 1911.

When he returned to Illinois that fall, he found that Elsie had taken a job as commercial artist in Chicago. This cemented their already growing interest in each other. On the morning of their wedding day about a year later, 9 November 1912, Edgar noticed that the light was “perfect”, and had Elsie postpone the ceremony until the afternoon. Luckily the artist in her offered some understanding.

As a couple they became well known in Chicago’s art circle. Elsie helped Edgar with his mural work, and soon he had an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Arguably their greatest collaborative effort happened in 1914 with the arrival of their daughter, Evelyn. Between 1915 and 1918-19 Edgar maintained a professional address in Chicago at the Tree Studio Building on East Ohio Street.