On a winter day in 1893 a 14-year-old boy went to a blackboard
in Chicago's Beale School and drew his conception of the Christmas
story. The teacher was impressed.
"I
wonder," she asked, "if you would mind doing this
in some of the classrooms upstairs?" The youngster concentrated,
and four more blackboards soon were filled with the handiwork
of George Demont Otis. His obvious talent so excited the teacher
that she brought it to the attention of her husband, United
States Senator, James Akins.
Not
long thereafter, the senator presented young Otis a full scholarship,
with no strings attached, to the Chicago Art Institute.
For
Otis, orphaned at the age of 6, it was the start of a long and
illustrious career as a painter of the American scene. Still
very active at 80, he works today out of a charming Kentfield
studio-home which he and his wife, Clara, built themselves in
1934 at 907 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.
The
Otis' guest books are crammed with the signatures of nearly
40,000 visitors from all corners of the world. Many hundreds
of them are happy possessors of an Otis canvas. Noted primarily
for his landscapes, Otis is represented in 79 private art collections
at home and abroad and in seven national and three foreign galleries.
Unlike
most painters, he has succeeded in earning a living from the
sales of his work. He enjoys teaching, but has never been forced
into it to make ends meet.
It
has been said of art that its function is the creation of beauty
and its main purpose is to give pleasure. Painting for reverent
realism for more than six decades, Otis has fulfilled these
aims. Residents of many states, their homes graced by Otis landscapes,
will testify to this.
Otis
tells of a young woman who returned to his studio one day with
a small painting she had purchased from him. She shook it excitedly
in front of his face and said breathlessly, "My brother
says if you can get a piece of good work like this, you should
go back and get a bigger piece of it!" She did.
An
outdoor painter, Otis is probably more familiar with Marin's
rural byways than most lifelong county residents. On the back
of each of his paintings he affixes a statement telling precisely
where, when and how the original work was done and listing its
appraised insurance value. He retains a copy of the statement
for his own files.
After
his customers have selected a painting, Otis lets them take
it home on a trial basis. He wants them to be certain of the
room in which they plan to hang it. On request, he will go to
customer's homes and assist in the placement of his works.
His
eagerness to be of service can be traced back to his early painting
years, when he received invaluable help from some of America's
foremost artists. Notable among them was John F. Carlson of
Woodstock, New York.
"Carlson
helped me as an artist, a teacher and a friend," Otis recalls:
"He gained inner satisfaction, strength and joy by helping
others and sharing his knowledge with them."
Otis
also was profoundly influenced by the eminent Winslow Homer
and George Inness, as well as Thomas Moran, a painter whom he
knew in the Southwest, and Wellington J. Reynolds, who gave
him life class instruction.
Otis
considers complete mastery of drawing an indispensable prerequisite
for accomplishment in painting.
"A
large building," he observes, "requires a firm foundation.
For painting there must be the firm foundation of drawing. One
cannot tell a beginning art student simply to go ahead and paint."
Otis
believes every artist should own his own studio. To him, the
studio is more than a workshop; it is a consecrated wellspring
of creativity.
Early
in his career he "learned to cross the threshold of my
studio with reverence, as though I were entering a shrine set
apart for me . . . This same reverence accompanies me at all
times when I contact any part of nature that seems suited for
that day's work."
Otis'
love of trees has been demonstrated again and again in his prolific
outpouring of landscapes. Trees, to him, are "God's greatest
work."
"All
noble art," Otis has written, "is the expression of
man's delight in God's work . . . God has loaned us the earth
for our life; it belongs as much to those who come after us
as it does to us. We have no right to neglect any obligations
that are within our power to bequeath."
If
it is a painting you are working upon, make it your best. Leave
the finished product with a feeling that something has been
added toward the betterment of civilization. . . ."
Over
the years, Otis has found that "the value you put upon
yourself is the value people accept. In order that a high value
may be put upon you, you must know from within that you possess
humility, reverence, inspiration, deep purpose, and joy."
Throughout
his life, he said, he has tried to use these five "guiding
factors" as "the great potentialities that they are.
They combine to make you just as great as you will make use
of them"
"Many
years ago," he added, "I found by observation of others
who were successful that in order to achieve greatness or stability
or balance, one had to go only one inch beyond mediocrity. But
that one inch is so hard to travel that only those who become
aware of God in them can make the grade. No one can ever hope
to achieve that one inch alone. Just a short study of the Bible
proved to me there was a power unseen and unheard, that could
direct all."
Otis,
who is listed in "Who's Who in American Art," also
has deep-rooted convictions about the teaching of art. "From
the start," he counsels, "one must teach the student
self-respect and belief in himself."
He
urges the instructor to regard himself as "another student,
a little more able to guide" and as a friend to the aspiring
artist rather than a critic or teacher.
"Avoid
flattery or synthetic praise," Otis cautions. "Often
a class will gain much from an enlightened teacher of truth
who has in mind a sense of love and the struggle of youth to
attain a common desire."
He
believes audible criticism can destroy the student's will or
give him a sense of "doing it for the teacher" and
not from his own heart.
"Allow
one student to help another," he advises. "This brings
a feeling of fellowship and confidence. Seek out the better
students as monitors and put them to work helping those newly
promoted from the elementary to the advanced classes. But never
have a teacher's pet; they usually are weak and, many times,
become misguided failures."
Otis has written a book, "The ABC-XYZ of Landscape Painting"
illustrated with his drawings, it is not to be published until
after his death.
A
man of diversified talents, he is also an accomplished woodcarver,
stained-glass designer, art appraiser and art restorer, as well
as a maker and gilder of picture frames.
In
his unusual home of English-Norman design, Otis has many pieces
of his hand carved furniture and a hearts-of-redwood stairway
with an intricate carved design depicting 152 varieties of sea
life which he has seen or caught. His fireplace is built of
San Francisco paving blocks and railroad ties. The studio-home
also contains several fine examples of his stained-glass windows.
Otis
has been a designer and painter of scenery for opera, theater
and motion picture productions. He was employed in Hollywood
by Louis B. Mayer of MGM during the early days of the movies
and had a battery of artists working under his direction. Buster
Keaton, famed comedian of the silent screen, is a close friend
of his.
Born Sept. 21, 1879, in Memphis, Tenn., Otis is the youngest
of three children of George and Georgia Etta Otis. Of Scottish
descent, he arrived two weeks after his father, a railroad engineer,
was killed in a train wreck.
After his mother's death, when he was 6, Otis was taken in by
an aunt and uncle in Seldalia, Mo. His brother and sister were
sent to the homes of other relatives.
When
he was 12, Otis was placed by his maternal grandmother in the
home of a South Chicago family. He stayed about a year, then
ran away and found a haven with a French family in Chicago.
It was during this period that Senator Akins' wife discovered
his drawing talent at Beale School.
Otis
spent two years at the Chicago Art Institute and another at
the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Then he went east for several
years of advanced study at the famed Art Students League and
Cooper Institute in New York City and the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
In
his early twenties he returned to Chicago, where he helped found
the Palette and Chisel Club. Open to artists and sculptors "of
proven determination," the club was established on a shoestring
in a small basement room. Today, it occupies a multi-million-dollar
building. Otis is a life member.
After
returning to Chicago, he was commissioned by Mrs. Akins to do
a portrait of her elderly father. It was completed in five days
and, as Otis remembers, "She fell in love with it at first
sight. She had it framed and was going to give it to her father,
but he died that day."
For
the next several years Otis traveled and painted in the eastern
states, keeping his home-studio in Chicago. Always eager to
learn, he sought out noted artists who "had what I was
looking for." It was the period in which Carlson, Inness,
Homer and many others befriended him and shared their secrets
with him. "I found," said Otis, "that the greater
the man, the more eager he was to be of help."
One of his proudest possessions is a weather beaten six-by-eight-inch
paint box he was given by a Chicago art dealer after winning
a cash prize for a painting. As a young man, he used the little
"thumb box" on his far-flung painting trips.
Little
known about Otis is the fact that he spent three summers playing
professional baseball in the Southern Association.
"I
was the first pitcher in the league to use an out-curve,"
he recalls. "I pitched two or three games a week and played
third base or right field on the days I didn't pitch."
"We
wore thin leather mitts with our bare fingers sticking out.
In those days the ball weighed about an ounce and a half more
than it does today, and the pitching distance was 62.5 feet
compared with the present 54. The catcher would stand far behind
the batter and would catch the ball on the bounce."
Otis
played two 60-game seasons for Nashville and one for the Memphis
club. He was paid $250 to $300 a season and $3 for each exhibition
game, using the earnings to further his chosen career in art.
During
those three summers he executed "hundreds and hundreds"
of grease pencil drawings. In the winters he continued to paint,
and when his commissions increased he decided to give up baseball.
Working
alternately in the east and midwest. Otis became widely known
for his diversified abilities. Stage scenery design, art appraisal
and art restoration occupied much of his time, and the American
Tobacco Co. paid him handsomely for doing large decorative ceiling
murals in its retail outlets.
One
year a Newark, N.J. millionaire commissioned him, for $2,000,
to do a large painting of his wife seated in a chair while the
family dog, a Russian wolfhound, rested its head on her lap.
She wore a $3,000 white lace gown for the sittings.
After
three sessions, Otis invited the wealthy man to see how the
canvas was progressing. He told the artist it wasn't exactly
what he had in mind.
"I
knew then that he wanted me to paint his wife as she had looked
as a bride," Otis relates. "In two more sittings I
took off about 2,000 wrinkles, then gave them the painting to
live with overnight." The next day the husband said he
liked the dog and wished his wife looked half as good. She still
appeared too old to suit him.
Otis
said he just shrugged and walked out with the portrait. Back
in his studio, he cut the dog's picture out of the canvas and
painted a plain background over what remained of the lace dress.
He entered the animal study in a show at the Brooklyn Museum,
where it won a prize and was sold the first day.
In
the early 1910s, Otis moved westward. Near Estes Park, Colorado,
at the gateway to the Rockies, he converted an old barn into
a studio that served him for nearly a year. Then, painting at
a furious pace and roughing it all the way, he worked his way
south along the St. Vrain River.
Scenes
of Bryce and Zion Canyons and the great expanses of the Arizona-New
Mexico desert appeared on his canvases before his wilderness
trek ended in Southern California. His work as a scene designer
at MGM came during the next several years.
Still
under the spell of the great Southwest, Otis returned to Arizona
and New Mexico many times between motion picture jobs, often
for months at a time.
Shunning
civilization, he lived with-and painted-the desert Indians.
Many of them distrusted him at first, but gradually he won their
admiration, he said, "by showing no fear."
He
studied the customs, arts and religions of seven tribes-Hopi,
Navajo, Yuma, Isleta, Acoma, Taos and Pima-and managed to gain
a limited facility in their language.
During
these desert expeditions, Otis turned out more than 200 meticulously
accurate watercolors, only 18 of which he has kept. Among the
latter are scenes of Indian basket weavers, sheep herders, turquoise
workers and pottery makers.
In
1930, Otis quit his movie work and moved to San Francisco. There,
the next year, he met his wife-to-be. They were married in Reno
by Judge Thomas F. Moran, who proved to be a cousin of the painter,
Thomas Moran, one of Otis' dearest friends.
The
Otis' "discovered" Marin County, and their future
home site on a motor trip in 1932. After rounding a bend on
Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Kentfield, they stopped to admire
the view of Mt. Tamalpais. Across the street they spotted a
sign: "Lots for sale." "We decided then and there
to buy," said Otis.
Two
years later they began the arduous job of building their attractive
and comfortable home. In 1936, they added a gallery and studio
on the west side of the house.
"This
is the longest time I have ever stayed in one place," says
the 80-year-old artist. "I have worked in thousands of
places throughout the United States, but I wouldn't trade Marin
for the whole bunch."
To
the right of his front door is an inviting sign:
Paintings
of California
Studio of George Demont Otis
Visitors Welcome
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