Edgar Payne (1883 - 1947). Edgar Alwin Payne was an American artist known for his masterful landscape paintings, particularly of the American West. Born in Washburn, Missouri, Payne was largely self-taught and began his career as a house painter and scene painter for theaters. In 1909, he moved to California, where he became associated with the California Impressionist movement. Payne is best known for his expansive depictions of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Grand Canyon, and Monument Valley, capturing the rugged beauty of these landscapes with broad, dynamic brushstrokes and vibrant color. In addition to his Western scenes, Payne also traveled extensively in Europe between 1922 and 1924, painting alpine landscapes in France, Italy, and Switzerland. His work during this period included village scenes and mountain vistas, influenced by European plein air painting techniques. Payne wrote Composition of Outdoor Painting, a well-regarded guide to landscape painting, which is still used by artists today. Throughout his career, Payne exhibited widely and became a prominent figure in American landscape painting, contributing to major exhibitions at institutions like the National Academy of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago. He was also a founding member of the Laguna Beach Art Association. Payne continued to paint landscapes until his death in 1947 in Hollywood, California. His works remain highly respected for their depiction of the vast, unspoiled wilderness of the American West. 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. In 1909, at the age of 26, he made his way to California for the first time. 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. 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.