Clyde Leon Keller (1872-1962) American, Landscape Oil on Board. Depicts willows on a tranquil isthmus. Signed bottom right. Origin, date (1945), and informative tag on back. Framed.

Frame: 14 2/4 x 20 3/4 in. 

Sight: 9 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. 

#3737 . 

Clyde Leon Keller was born in Salem, Oregon in 1872. Although there was no artistic background to his family he showed signs as a child prodigy early on, and enrolled at Willamette University at the age of 12, taking drawing classes under Mary Bridges and later oil and watercolor classes under Marie Craig LeGall. By 1893 he had an artist listing in the Salem City Directory, and in 1894 his mentor, Homer Davenport, got him work as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner. While working he continued to study under E. W. Christmas, who encouraged him to abandon portraiture and focus solely on landscapes. He opened an art shop in 1906 but lost everything in the April Earthquake that year. More determined than ever to continue painting, he moved back to Oregon and opened an art and frame shop in Portland in 1907, where he continued to work, teach, and hold exhibitions until the shop closed in 1936. He was a founding member of the Oregon Society of Artists, serving as president in 1931. His son, Clyde Keller, Jr., went on to become a watercolor artist and later president of the Society as well. Two presidents held works by him: Herbert Hoover, who was a childhood friend, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who hung a painting of the Bonneville Dam behind his desk in the White House. He was an extremely prolific artist whose works were exhibited in multiple countries in Europe and South America, and have been found in galleries all over the United States. In 1940 he retired to Cannon Beach, where he continued to paint until his death in 1962. It is estimated he created nearly 500 pieces and accumulated a staggering 275 prizes for his various works within his own lifetime.

Tiny paint chip.