GEORGE DEMONT OTIS (1879 1962)
An impressionist landscape painter, carver, etcher and teacher, George Demont Otis maintained studios in Chicago, Colorado and California, living most of his career on the West Coast.
Otis was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and was raised by his grandmother in Chicago. By age fourteen, he was enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago and showed early talent with meticulous architectural drawings of Chicago buildings. After finishing at the Institute, Otis enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts with John Vanderpoel. He also trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and in New York City at Cooper Union, the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. In addition, he took private lessons with John Carlson and William Merritt Chase for landscape, Izra Winters and Wellington Reynolds for figure and Robert Henri for still life.
Otis played professional baseball and pitched for two seasons in the Southern Association. During the time he was in the South, often in Tennessee, he did many drawings in grease pencil, gouache, pen and ink, watercolors and pastels. He was an energetic, robust man who frequently journeyed to wilderness areas to paint. He also established a studio near Estes Park Colorado, and first visited California in 1900, where he was intrigued by the "quality of light and the clearness of the air." In 1919, Otis moved to Los Angeles and worked for movie studios while painting scenes of the desert, mountains, beaches, trees, valleys and mountains. His skills attracted the attention of Louis B. Mayer of MGM Studios, who hired Otis to design movie sets and oversee set-painting crews.
Otis also took his easel to Indian reservations in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico and frequently portrayed the customs of the Hopi, Navajo, Yuma, Isleta, Acoma, Taos and Pima tribes. He was Chairman for the American Artists Professional League, west of the Mississippi, and lectured widely to members as well as other persons on the importance of preserving the land and being conscious of maintaining the environment. In 1930, Otis moved to San Francisco and lived with an enclave of artists on Montgomery Street and then in the studio of Arthur Putnam near Golden Gate Park. In 1934 he opened a studio-gallery in Kentfield in Marin County, where he developed his commitment to selling his own work and not working with dealers.
He enjoyed socializing and included John Steinbeck, Jack
London and Brother Cornelius among his friends. Over five hundred of Otis'
students became professional artists. His affiliations included the Chicago
Society of Art, the Laguna Beach Art Association, Palette and Chisel Club
of Chicago and the Marin Society of Artists.
Eucalyptus Trail
Oil on canvas, 24" x 26"
Signed lower right: Geo. Demont Otis
Circa 1920
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