{"title":"Holmwood, Loren (1892–1985)","description":"\u003cp\u003ePortrait painter and illustrator Loren Conrad Holmwood (1892–1985) was born in Puyallup, Washington. He began painting as a child and by the age of fifteen was an accomplished artist. He and his three brothers were taught to play musical instruments by their father and travelled as a band playing for dances and proms (later, his brother Owen also became an artist). In 1918 Holmwood joined the Navy, where he played in the band, then upon discharge he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy the early 1930s he had settled in Laguna Beach, at the former studio\/home of the Western landscape painter and muralist Edgar Payne (1882–1947). Part of the Laguna Beach art colony, Holmwood painted portraits of local figures, including of the artist Joane Cromwell (1895–1969), now in the collection of Western Illinois Museum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e1936 he travelled from California to Hammerfest and North Cape in North Norway in search of source material.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHolmwood also worked as an illustrator, producing covers for magazines such as Colliers, Country Gentlemen and Literary Digest, and illustrating the book 'Whispering Wind, Folktales of the Navaho Indians'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1971, resident at Tahoe City, he was honoured as Man of the Year by the Greater Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce, for his gift of fifty-two acres along Ward Creek to the Washoe community in Nevada. He died in Laguna Beach in 1985.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"loren-holmwood-sami-with-reindeer-hostflytning-northern-norway-original-c-1936-etching-print-kc-979","title":"Loren Holmwood, Sámi with Reindeer 'Höstflytning', Northern Norway – c.1936 etching print","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn original c.1936 etching print – Loren Holmwood, Sámi with Reindeer 'Höstflytning', Northern Norway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA compelling portrait of a Sámi woman and children, engaged in the Höstflytning, or 'autumn flight', when reindeer herding families in Northern Norway move from coastal pastures to inland mountains and plateaus for winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmerican portrait artist Loren Holmwood (1892–1985), a member of the Laguna Beach artist colony, is known in particular for his depiction of children, in a manner evocative of his contemporary Norman Rockwell (1894–1978).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRemarkably, in November 1936, Holmwood travelled from California to Hammerfest and North Cape in North Norway in search of source material; this etching is undoubtedly a result of this trip. Holmwood left his Berkeley studio in June 1936, travelling by motorcar to New York where he took the Swedish liner Drottningholm to Gothenburg. From Gothenburg he went to Oslo and subsequently travelled up the west coast of Norway, visiting Bergen, Aalesund and Trondheim on the way to the far north, then on to Stockholm and Copenhagen before returning to the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat prompted this adventurous mission we do not know, but it is interesting to note that later in life Loren Holmwood settled at Tahoe City, where he gifted fifty-two acres of his land along Ward Creek to the Washoe community in Nevada. His experiences amongst the Sámi were perhaps formative in a wider affinity for the cultures of indigenous peoples.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHolmwood's large etching is both charming and impactful; the Sámi confront the viewer's gaze head-on and the cropped 'snapshot' composition creates a dynamic sense of reality beyond the artist's lens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEtching with colour.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Somerset \u0026 Wood","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53534545674569,"sku":"KC-979","price":380.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/4306\/5161\/files\/KC-979.jpg?v=1766161662"}],"url":"https:\/\/somersetandwood.com\/es-eu\/collections\/holmwood-loren-1892-1985.oembed","provider":"Somerset \u0026 Wood Fine Art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}