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Hanson Puthuff

(1875 - 1972)

Hanson Puthuff is an early California Impressionist artist who is widely admired for his skillful landscape paintings depicting the state's bucolic rolling hills and canyons and their iconic eucalyptus trees. He is also remembered for his Sierra mountain paintings and desert scenes. His works typically feature bold, loose brushstrokes and subtle lighting and atmospheric effects.

Born in Waverly, Missouri in 1875, his mother died when he was two years old. He was raised by his mother's friend, Elizabeth Stadley Puthuff, and later began using her last name. His formal art studies were at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Denver Art School.

Hanson Duvall Puthuff moved to the Los Angeles area in 1903 and found work as a billboard illustrator, a job he would keep for over 20 years. Concurrently, he would sketch and paint in his free time and received two Silver medals for paintings shown at the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. In 1926 he was able to devote himself entirely to his art.

He was commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad to create a group of paintings featuring the Grand Canyon, and these artworks were exhibited in 1927. The entire group was eventually purchased by the Fleischer Museum. Puthuff was also hired to design and create the backgrounds for exhibits at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art, and the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial in the American Museum of History in New York.

Puthuff occasionally went on trips with fellow artist Edgar Payne, who is regarded as one of the most important Southern California Impressionists. They both particularly enjoyed painting desert scenes including works featuring Canyon de Chelly in Arizona.

Hanson Puthuff also helped to found the California Art Club and the Art Students League of Los Angeles, two of the most important artists' organizations of that era. Known as a classic southern California Plein Air artist, he exhibited extensively, including shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Art Association and the Paris Salon, where he earned a bronze medal.

His paintings are held in the collections of numerous important institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fleisher Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Irvine Museum.