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Collection >> Artists >> Clymer
portrait Barclay






1907 - 1989
John Clymer: American Imagist

John Clymer said that he always tried to take the viewer of his art "to an actual place and make him feel that he was really there."

Renowned for documenting the American frontier, western history and wildlife, John Ford Clymer was born in Ellensburg, Washington. Starting at the age of 13, he took a serious interest in art and enlisted in correspondence art courses. Although unsolicited, by the time he was 16 he had sold his first two illustrations to Colt Firearms Company in Hartford, Connecticut. Clymer had no formal artistic training and was amazed that an art director would purchase his illustrations. His work was clearly way above average and more than suitable for publication. Ingenuity and raw talent were driving the young man into illustration as a profession and it was recognized by anyone who saw his work. The Colt illustrations were used for advertisements, published and republished over again, to his utter delight.

After graduating from high school, Clymer moved to Canada and worked as an illustrator for billboards and as a sign painter in Vancouver, where he took art classes in night school until he was 23. He studied at the Vancouver School of Fine Art and then at the Ontario College of Art. As he matured, Clymer traveled throughout the Northwest and Canada to get immersed in the environments which he loved to paint best - wildlife, mountain men, trappers, Indians and the flora inhabiting the region - his region.

In 1927, Clymer worked on a steamboat on the Yukon River and visited gold mines, river trading posts and logging camps. He created a visual encyclopedia of memories of changing times and scenery as the natural landscape began to evolve with encroaching civilization and a man-made environment. In 1930, John Clymer attended the Wilmington Academy in Delaware, where he was strongly influenced by NC Wyeth and Wyeth's students: Gayle Hoskins, Stanley Arthurs, and Douglas Duer.

In 1932, he married and a few years later moved to Westport, Connecticut to join a growing artist colony. He studied with Harvey Dunn in Westport and later at the Grand Central School of Art in NYC. The illustrator Walt Louderback was his hero, although he was also impressed with Dean Cornwell and NC Wyeth. Clymer's illustrations were published in the Saturday Evening Post, True, Field and Stream, and American Cyanamid Company's calendars for 28 years, as well as an advertising series for the New England Life Insurance Company, amongst other commissions.

During World War II, he and his Westport friend, illustrator Tom Lovell, joined the Marines together. They were stationed in Washington and spent the war painting illustrations for the Marine Corps Gazette and Leatherneck magazine. When he was discharged in 1945, Clymer rejoined the Post magazine and started doing covers once again, perhaps as many as ninety.

Clymer and his wife Doris moved in 1966 to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to further his penchant for painting local people, indigenous animals and flora, and to once again try to create a visual record of the fast and changing times.



Mission

  • Edwin Austin Abbey
  • Constantin Alajalov
  • Rolf Armstrong
  • Stanley Arthurs
  • Clifford Ashley
  • John Atherton
  • William Aylward
  • Joyce Ballantyne
  • McClelland Barclay
  • Cecil Calvert Beall
  • Arthur Becher
  • Mary Jane Begin
  • WT Benda
  • Gerrit Beneker
  • Anna Whelan Betts
  • Ethel Franklin Betts
  • Walter Biggs
  • Edwin Blashfield
  • Enoch Bolles
  • Franklin Booth
  • S Cole Bradley
  • Paul Bransom
  • F Sands Brunner
  • Duane Bryers
  • Al Buell
  • Edward Ulreich Buk
  • Charles Livingston Bull
  • Clara M Burd
  • Hal Burrows
  • Harrison Cady
  • Howard Chandler Christy
  • Frederick Stuart Church
  • Benton Clark
  • Matt Clark
  • John Clymer
  • Dean Cornwell
  • Douglas Crockwell
  • George Hughes
  • Peter Hurd
  • EO Hurst
  • Henry Hutt
  • Elbert McGran Jackson
  • Robert C Kauffman
  • JF Kernan
  • Rockwell Kent
  • WHD Koerner
  • John LaFarge
  • John LaGatta
  • FX Leyendecker
  • JC Leyendecker
  • Henry Linnell
  • George Luks
  • Reginald Marsh
  • Richard Field Maynard
  • Frederic Kimball Mizen
  • Thomas Moran
  • Rudy Nappi
  • Thomas Nast
  • Thornton Oakley
  • Violet Oakley
  • Cushman Parker
  • Maxfield Parrish
  • Edward Penfield
  • George Petty
  • Coles Phillips
  • Henry Pitz
  • Edward Potthast
  • Maurice Prendergast
  • Norman Price
  • Howard Pyle
  • Ethel Ream
  • Sidney Reisenberg
  • Frederick Remington
  • Louis Rhead
  • Norman Rockwell
  • Alex Ross
  • Charles M Russell
  • Russell Sambrook
  • Mead Schaeffer
  • Jes Schlaikjer
  • Frank E Schoonover
  • Remington Schuyler
  • Barbara Shermund
  • Everret Shinn
  • John Sloan
  • Jessie Willcox Smith
  • Walter Granville Smith
  • Henry J Soulen
  • Paul Stahr
  • Alice Barber Stephens
  • Herbert Morton Stoops
  • Haddon Sundblom
  • Saul Tepper
  • Leslie Thrasher
  • George T Tobin
  • Alton Tobey
  • Rico Tomaso
  • Charles Twelvetrees
  • Alberto Vargas
  • Elihu Vedder
  • Harold von Schmidt
  • Colonel Charles Waterhouse
  • Thomas Webb
  • Sarah Stilwell Weber
  • Albert Beck Wenzell
  • Andrew Wyeth
  • Jamie Wyeth
  • NC Wyeth


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