Gray Bartlett 1885-1951
In his later years, an extensive traveler and prolific painter of western nostalgia throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Utah, Gray Bartlett began as a fine artist at the age of fifty-two, having been in the engraving business.
Phineas Gray Bartlett was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and as a youngster sketched cowboys. About 1890, he moved to Colorado where he became a working cowboy and sketched scenes of western life. Deciding he wanted to be an artist and not a rancher, he studied at the Greeley, Colorado Art School and then on a scholarship at the Chicago Art Institute.
However, the death of his mother brought him back to Denver where, to support his family, he got into photo-engraving. The business prospered, and he retired in 1937 and went to Los Angeles from where, using many sketches from earlier years, he pursued his true love–fine art painting, something he hadn’t done for thirty years.
With camera and sketchbook, he traveled extensively within California and surrounding states–Colorado, Utah, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. His paintings are in many collections including that of the Santa Fe Railway, Arizona State University and the California State Library.
He died from a heart attack in his studio in Los Angeles.
Source:Peggy and Harold Samuels, Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940