Millard Sheets Art

This watercolor is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Circus Wagons, 1927, watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower left, 10 x19 ¾ inches (sight), provenance includes Stary-Sheets Art Gallery (Gualala, CA); J. Ralph & Louis Stone Foundation; presented in a newer metal frame behind glazing About the Painting Millard Sheets was only twenty years old and in his third year of studies at the Chouinard Art Institute when he painted Circus Wagons. Despite his youth, Sheets was already an accomplished artist who had publicly exhibited his work and won prestigious prizes. Within several years, he would have his first solo exhibition at one of Los Angeles’ premiere galleries and become a painting instructor at his alma mater. In Circus Wagons we already see Sheets deft handling of the watercolor medium and his interest in the California Scene. In this case, Sheets captures a back lot view of a traveling circus, a subject he sometimes returned to, including in a color screen print in the collection of the National Gallery. Sheets made a career by painting what he knew and observed firsthand. This approach allowed Sheets to capture with authenticity the details of each narrative. Even with a narrowly limited palette and an economy of brushstrokes, Sheets effectively depicts the southern California scene with its strong and mysterious shadows, as well as the workers and circus animals. Seen through the hindsight of his six-decade long career, Circus Wagons offers a fascinating insight into the early development of California Scene painting which would by the mid-1930s become the best recognized style on the West Coast. About the Artist Millard Sheets was the dean of California watercolorists. His list of accomplishments is so extensive that his entry in Who was Who in American Art is over forty lines. Born in Pomona, California, Sheets became a painter at an early age, winning a prize at the Los Angeles County Fair in 1918. By the mid to late-1920s, Sheets became a regular at art exhibitions in the western part of the United States, winning several additional prizes before he reached the age of twenty-five. Sheets studied at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute from 1925 through 1929 with Frank Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle and had his first solo show with Los Angeles’ Dalzell Hatfield Gallery in 1929. During the 1930s, Sheets was invited to exhibit at almost every major American Museum and in many ways, his work came to represent the California watercolor school...

Mexican Travelers by Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907–1989) Date: Circa 1977 Lithograph on Arches paper, signed and numbered in pencil Edition o...

Field by Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907–1989) Date: circa 1977 Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition of 250 Size: 24 in. x 35 in. ...

Signed, titled, and numbered, in pencil. The proposed edition was 100 although it is very unlikely that these were printed. This large and intensely urban lithograph, Family Flats, by Millard Sheets, portrays the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles. Now drastically changed, it's still home to the Angels Flight funicular railway built in 1901. Sheets (1907-1989) was a painter, watercolorist, printmaker, mosaic artist, and teacher, who worked in Southern California. He attended the Chouinard Art institute and studied with F. Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle...

Fisherman by Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907–1989) Date: circa 1977 Lithograph, signed in pencil Edition of AP Image Size: 22 x 29.5 inches Siz...

Summertime in Martha's Vineyard is drenched in saturated yellows and reds. People in the foreground look out to the sea. Two people on horseback are masterfully rendered in a loose ...

Artist: Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907 - 1989) Title: Brood Mare Pasture Year: circa 1977 Medium: Lithograph, signed in pencil Edition: 250, A...

Artist: Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907 - 1989) Title: Summer Gold Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 250, 5 HC Image S...

MILLARD SHEETS (1987 – 1989) HORSE FRIGHTENED BY LIGHTNING, 1939 Lithograph signed in pencil, annotated “TRIAL PROOF”. The published edition is 75. Image, 17 x 22”. Sheet 19 ½” x 2...

Mexican Babysitter Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907–1989) Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition of AP Image Size: 24 x 11 inches

In some instances, a painting will look significantly much better in person than it does digitize. This is one instance. In-person, this painting will knock your socks off. It is...

Signed and dated lower right: Millard Sheets / 1976