Edgar Alwin Payne was an American landscape painter who loved the West more than anywhere else, painting the Sierras, the Grand Canyon and the Four Corners with a plein air passion that felt almost obsessive. He grew up in Missouri left home young and learned by doing, painting signs, stage sets and murals before settling in California where the light and mountains kept calling him, he married Elsie Palmer and they traveled and painted together.
Payne helped found the Laguna Beach art scene and wrote a book on outdoor composition, but he kept working fast, often finishing a canvas a day; his Sierra paintings are what people remember most. His style is bold yet reverent, with big skies, solid forms and a steady sense of composition that still teaches painters today.
