Robert Templeton (artist)
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Robert Templeton (May 11, 1929 – July 16, 1991) was an American artist. His work includes the civil rights collection "Lest we forget...Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement", highlighting seminal figures from the movement. Templeton painted the portrait of former President Jimmy Carter that is displayed in the Hall of presidents of the Smithsonian Institution's
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
.


Early life

Robert Templeton was born into a farming family in Iowa on May 11, 1929. Due to the Wall Street crash that year, his childhood was difficult. The family depended on growing their own vegetables, supplemented by his father's wages as a WPA worker, and government rice handouts. Their quality of life improved when his father was entrusted with the management of a farm in
Montgomery County, Iowa Montgomery County is a county located in the southwestern area of the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,330. Its population has declined since a peak in 1900, since urbanization and decline of family farms. The co ...
, as a tenant farmer. Templeton later said that all the deprivations of his childhood toughened him rather than defeated him. Templeton began drawing when he was about 11 years old and recalled how he looked forward to the arrival of '' The Saturday Evening Post'' with the cover painting by Norman Rockwell, which contributed to his decision to become an artist. In between school and farming chores he filled his sketchbooks with scenes from the Iowa countryside. His sketches caught the attention of his high school principal, Mary Buffington, who encouraged him to pursue a career in art.


Education

Templeton won a
National Merit Scholarship The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizati ...
, and Buffington helped him to apply to the Kansas City Art Institute. He was accepted and arrived in
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
in 1946 at the age of seventeen. During that year Templeton was awarded the Vanderslice scholarship. Early on, Templeton was able to cover his living expenses with portrait commissions. He spent his summers in Colorado, honing his skill in portraiture on the sidewalks of
Estes Park Estes Park is a statutory town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 5,904 at the 2020 United States Census. Estes Park is a part of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corr ...
. In Kansas City he came under the influence and tutelage of Thomas Hart Benton, who sat for him for his portrait. Templeton had gone to the Benton home for the sitting, and when the sketch was finished, Benton called in his daughter to get her reaction to the portrait. When she approved, Benton was delighted, and autographed it. In the summer of 1949 Templeton traveled to
Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
, to visit with the artist John French Sloan and his wife Helen. A lifelong friendship developed from that visit, and when Templeton moved to New York to continue his studies at the
Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...
, Sunday afternoon teas and discussions about art at the Sloan home became a regular event in Templeton's life. With a letter of recommendation from John Sloan, Templeton was able to get a Ball Grant from the Art Students League two years in a row. He attended classes in the Fall, Winter, and Spring, and he supplemented his income by ushering at
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
. He continued to spend summers as a sidewalk artist in Estes Park, which generated enough income to last him through the school year.


Army service

In 1952, Templeton was drafted into the United States Army for a two-year tour of duty. During basic training at Fort Leonard Wood he painted a forty-foot mural ''Portrait of America'', which showed the influence of Benton. After basic training Templeton was sent to Germany. There he took advantage of his furloughs to visit the great museums of Spain and Italy, studying the
Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
. While still in the army, Templeton met and married his wife Leonore, and upon discharge in 1954, they settled in New York City, where he shared a studio on the
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...
.


Trucking and highway themes

In 1963, Templeton and his then pregnant wife moved back to Iowa. Inspired by the newly constructed superhighway system covering the
Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
, he devoted his energy to creating works with a transportation age theme. He participated both in the Mid America Annual at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and the Annual Iowa Artists Exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center. His work focused on the effect the automobile had on the landscape, and the way we live. One of the recurring images in his work is the long distance trucker, whom he uses as the protagonist of high stress modern man. He experienced the life of a trucker first hand when he accompanied his brother Darwin, who owned a trucking company, on cross-country hauls. The paintings and constructions of trucks and highways were shown in 1964 at the Banfer Gallery in New York under the title ''L'Homme Machine (Machine Man)'', and posthumously in 2004 as ''Life on the Road'' in the Founders Gallery at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Connecticut.


Connecticut

In 1965, Templeton and his wife purchased a farm in Connecticut to live with their three sons. The Connecticut period was filled with commissions of leaders in government, industry and entertainment, among them presidents
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
and Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, author William Styron, baseball player
Stan Musial Stanley Frank Musial (; born Stanislaw Franciszek Musial; November 21, 1920 – January 19, 2013), nicknamed "Stan the Man", was an American baseball outfielder and first baseman. Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most consis ...
, poet Carl Sandburg, former Texas Governor John Connally, and opera singers
Luciano Pavarotti Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...
and
Joan Sutherland Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. She possessed ...
.


Civil rights period

Templeton continued to add paintings to his Machine-Man series, but in 1967, he was an unwitting participant in an event which inspired him to take his art in a new direction. In the summer of 1967, Templeton was in Detroit painting private portrait commissions, when riots broke out. Templeton recorded the chaos in his sketchbook, observing
looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
, fighting National Guardsmen, firefighters battling blazes, and even the governor's press conference. His sketches of the events became the cover art for the August 4, 1967, edition of '' Time'' magazine, the second cover he had done for the news magazine. In 1971, Templeton was commissioned by
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...
to be the
courtroom artist A courtroom sketch is an artistic depiction of the proceedings in a court of law. In many jurisdictions, cameras are not allowed in courtrooms in order to prevent distractions and preserve privacy. This requires news media to rely on sketch a ...
for the New Haven murder trial of Bobby Seale, founder of the
Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
. Because the court was closed to artists and reporters, Templeton had to create his sketches secretly. The resultant images are perhaps the only visual record that exists from the trial. Templeton was flown with his sketches to New York City, where the images were shown by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News. In 2007, Templeton's Black Panther trial sketches were acquired by Yale University and exhibited at the
Beinecke Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...
. After his experience in the Detroit riots, Templeton devoted more time to paint a record of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement. He disdained inequity and felt that with the profound change in
race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...
, the nation owed the participants recognition for their devotion to the cause. For nearly twenty years he arranged portrait sittings with leaders in the movement with the help and advice of Dr. Benjamin Mays, mentor and friend of Martin Luther King Jr. The resulting collection of over thirty paintings was first shown at Emory University with a grant from the Georgia Council of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The title "Lest we forget... Images of the Black Civil Rights Movement" came out of a conversation Templeton had with Dr. Mays, who worried that so many people, their work and sacrifice, might be forgotten someday. Since its first showing in 1986, the collection has toured the country.


Death

At age 62, and after drawing and painting for five decades, Templeton died at his home in Connecticut on July 16, 1991, of natural causes.


References


External links

*
The Artist Robert Templeton – video on YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Templeton, Robert 1929 births 1991 deaths 20th-century American painters People from Montgomery County, Iowa Painters from Connecticut American portrait painters Painters from Iowa