Gray Bartlett
n 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