Lotan Lotan Art

Despite Lotan's elaborate fabrications about his past certain biographical aspects are known for sure. He was born Lotan S. Welshans on June 19, 1905, in Danville, Indiana. Records list his mother as Anna Laurel Worthington-Jenkins and his father as Unknown. He attended Proviso Township High School in Illinois, where he graduated in 1924. After high school, he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts from 1924–26. Although he never graduated, records show he did complete almost 2500 hours of coursework. It's interesting to note that, particularly given Lotan's history of hyping and fabricating his past accomplishments, he was never known to mention the fact that he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, a fine school in its own right. In the late 1920s, he most likely worked as a commercial illustrator for an advertising firm with ties to the automobile industry. Illustrated advertisements for Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz from the late 20s signed Lotan Welshans are known to exist. Several Works Progress Administration era paintings signed by Lotan Welshans are also known to exist. So although little is known about his life in the 1930s, he was spending time painting. In 1952, he arrived in Arizona accompanied by his girlfriend Ruth and their pet Bulldog, Sir Oliver Cedric. Ruth, who would later become his wife, was also an artist. In a letter that same year to California artist Claude Buck, Lotan claims to be living in the middle of the desert painting like never before. He goes on to state in the letter that he had recently changed his name to Lotan Lotan because it was part of losing the past and becoming an entirely new person and doing my best to create a new painting as well as a new personality. Lotan had no problem stretching the truth to help create his new persona. During his Arizona years, he typically signed his paintings ‘Lotan Lotan, Ph.D., MD’ even though he was neither a Ph.D. or a Medical Doctor. Throughout his life, he claimed to have received degrees in medicine and a Ph.D. in art from the University of Berlin in 1926. In a 1966 interview with The Carefree Enterprise, he recounts how he used to operate a medical clinic and a portrait studio side by side in London. He goes on in the interview to state that he did commission portraits of King George V of England, President Warren Harding, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge and General John Pershing. None of this has ever been substantiated and it is in all likelihood false. He also claimed at various times to have studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, the Kaiser-Friedrich​-Museum in Berlin and the National Academy of Design in New York. No evidence has ever been found to validate these claims. In the same letter to Claude Buck, where he tells of his efforts to recreate himself, he mentions serving in the Naval Ordnance Department during World War II as well as the trying years trying to run an art school in Chicago following the war. He then mentions the dissolution of his marriage and finally his move to Arizona. Shortly after he arrived in Arizona, Lotan married Ruth. For several years, they lived in Scottsdale under the name Lotan and Ruth Ateliers. Then in the late 1950s they moved to Cave Creek, where they lived for nearly 15 years. During this time the Lotans often bartered their artwork in exchange for rent. For many of these years, they lived next door to John Wade Hampton, one of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America. During this time Lotan worked out of a studio in the Elbow Bend area of Carefree which he called L'Atelier. Lotan painted several murals during this time, including an eight-foot by forty foot mural for the Maricopa County Health Building. Lotan has been called the ‘Dali of the Desert’ on numerous occasions. Although many of his paintings from the Arizona years are of traditional Western themes, Lotan described his style as conceptualism. In 1971, Ruth was suffering from a terminal illness. The couple entered into a bizarre suicide pact which was to include the killing of their two bulldogs. Ruth followed through and Lotan killed the dogs but could not bring himself to complete the agreement. Shortly after the incident, Lotan moved to Prescott, where he continued to paint and teach for another 10 years. He was the cover artist for the Frontier Days program in 1982. Lotan died at the Pioneers Home in Prescott in 1985.