Millard Owen Sheets (1907 - 1989) Original Watercolour - Evening Horses

Millard Owen Sheets (1907 - 1989) 

Watercolour on paper 

Evening Horses. 

Size: 101 x 76 cm  

A very good example. Signed and dated, 1964.

With the original Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd Label on the reverse. 

 Millard Sheets was one of the seminal artists working in California from the late 1920's until his death in the late 1980's. Often identified as the most influential of the "California Scene Painters" during the 1930's and 40's, Sheets was a master watercolourist and oil painter who had a unique and distinctive style.  Sheets was born in 1907 in Pomona, California and grew up on a ranch, where he developed a love of the land and became attracted to simple, rustic, rural scenes. His modernist paintings often feature rich, bold, vibrant colours and are arranged in broad clean areas of colour with clearly defined sharp edges in a simplified two-dimensional composition.   Sheets enrolled in Southern California's acclaimed professional art school, the Chouinard Art Institute, studying under Clarence Hinke and F. Tolle Chamberlin. At just 19, his watercolours were accepted into the California Watercolour Society's Annual Exhibition and, while still enrolled at Chouinard, he was hired to teach watercolour painting there. Shortly after finishing school, he gained recognition for his work, exhibiting in the United States and internationally. Sheets was so successful that he was able to travel throughout the world, usually depicting his experiences in watercolour.  Sheets was highly regarded for his work in many fields tangential to painting. A master artist, he also excelled as a teacher, war artist correspondent, sculptor, architect and mural designer. He designed and oversaw the implementation of over 100 public murals, and as one of the directors of the WPA Art Program for Southern California, his leadership and impact on the local art world cannot be overstated. Sheets spent 20 years teaching at Scripps College and six years as the director of the Otis Institute before retiring to Mendocino County in 1960. His paintings can be found the collections of numerous significant museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, and the National Gallery in Washington D.C