Grandpa the painter

In the mid ’50’s my maternal Grandfather began to paint.

He had had a minor heart attack and everyone wanted him to take it easy. He couldn't play the piano all of the time, so my mother suggested he try watercolor.

He was about 70 at the time. He had graduated from College, but his Major was Bible and Music, not art. He began painting with great gusto.

Grandpa’s style would be considered primitive: he did not know the rules of painting and color. He painted any way. And when a primitive painter shines it is wonderful.

This painting was done I the late 50’s, close to the beginning of his painting hobby. He was about 74. (He lived to be 98.) Unfortunately he aspired to a more detailed style. But at this point no one had messed with his head and no one had tried to teach him.

I wish I could have been his teacher/protector. I would have said: “Grandpa do not look at other painters, do not read any books, do not let any one change anything about your way of painting.” But with the best of motives mom and grandma bought him books, and magazines, and grandpa read and tried to paint “better.”

Grandpa was a very conservative 19th Christian man. I his view, Jazz and “Modern Art” were the same, he told me many times. “They are both an aberration of the real.” So painting like Cezanne or Van Gogh was not “good enough.” He was sure he did not like "modern art" and was pretty sure God did not either.

When Grandpa died I inherited the paintings. They have been on my shelf for several decades. But computers have changed it all. Today I scanned a dozen or so of the ones I like best. I would like others to see them too.

Grandpa, these are wonderful paintings, in spite of what you might have thought.