Edgar Alwin Payne

Edgar Payne was born in Missouri in 1883. His parents were farmers. Payne’s early life was spent working on the family farm. At the age of twenty, he left home and spent a few years doing odd jobs in order to survive. In 1905, he moved to Houston with two of his sisters and earned his living painting houses. His interest in art led him to open a Scene Painting studio in Dallas. By 1907, Payne moved to Chicago. For a brief period, he took classes at the Chicago Art Institute. He continued to make his living from Scene Painting and began selling his work at the Palette and Chisel Club.

Edgar Payne’s first trip to California was in 1909. It was here that he met his future wife, Elsie Palmer. They married in 1912. By that time, Payne was receiving much more attention for his Easel Work than his Scene Painting business. He gave a show of 65 paintings at the Palette and Chisel Club in May of 1913…selling every painting!

The Payne’s moved to Laguna Beach, California in 1917. It was from Laguna Beach that Payne began his many painting trips to the Sierras and the Southwest. In 1922, he traveled to Europe for two years with his family. Payne painted many pictures of fishing life and mountain scenes while there.

It was Payne’s habit to paint numerous sketches on location and from these, create larger finished works in his studio. It was because of this practice that his paintings tend to have a compositionally repetitive look. This is especially true of his Sierra scenes.

His book on painting, “Composition of Outdoor Painting”, is still in print today because of its no nonsense approach to the craft of painting.

Edgar Payne died in 1947 after a long battle with cancer.