George Demont Otis
George Demont Otis (1879-1962)
George Demont Otis was born in Memphis, TN, on Sept. 21, 1879. After three seasons as a pitcher for Memphis and Nashville clubs, Otis abandoned a promising baseball career to pursue art. He first studied art at age 14 at the AIC followed by work at the PAFA and in New York at the Cooper Union, NAD, ASL, Brooklyn Academy, and with Robert Henri, Wm M. Chase, and John F. Carlson.
While based in Chicago, Otis traveled extensively, often in the company of Thomas Moran. Early in the century, he lived in Colorado, Taos, and Santa Fe, NM. After moving to Los Angeles in 1919, he established a studio in Burbank, where he worked for the movie studios. In his leisure, he made frequent painting trips to the Indian reservations of New Mexico and Arizona.
George Demont Otis moved to San Francisco in 1930 and established a studio in the former Arthur Putnam home in 1934, and moved across the Golden Gate to Kentfield into a home studio at 907 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Otis taught hundreds of students during his lifetime, however, in 1939, he stopped teaching to devote his last years to painting. As an American Impressionist, he is nationally recognized as a mountain landscape painter, sycamore and eucalyptus trees, and missions. A leader in conservation, he is known as the artistic father of Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore and the Golden Gate Nat’l Recreation area. George Demont Otis died at his home in Kentfield on Feb. 25, 1962.
Sources:
Edan Hughes, “Artists in California 1786-1940”
askART.com
California Art Company is Actively Seeking to Acquire Paintings by George Demont Otis
California Art Company, LLC is actively seeking to acquire fine art paintings by George Demont Otis. If you have a painting by George Demont Otis that you would like to sell, please email photos and your asking price to greg@californiaartcompany.com or give us a call at (818) 398-7363.
