“Art: an enduring record of man’s emotional response to his existence.” -Peter Hurd

Sometimes we realize that at some point in time we have met or known artists that were or are famous and very successful. Several well known artists have elected to make their home in my “Land of Enchantment,” New Mexico. Among the “great” ones were Georgia O’Keeffe and Peter Hurd (Andrew Wyeth’s brother-in-law). My father, artist, Arlen Burton, had the pleasure of meeting both of these well known artists through their acquaintance with artist, Roderick Fletcher Mead – the person my father took lessons from back in the 1950s.

A telephone conversation with my brother, Texas artist, Lynn Burton, reminded me of Mr. Mead. My brother, as a teenager, also took lessons from Mr. Mead. He told me to look up his biography on Bing, telling me I would be impressed with it…I was. Being only a kid at the time that my father and brother took art lessons, I never realized the work Mr. Mead went through to achieve all he achieved.

After graduating from Yale University with a fine arts degree in 1925, Mr. Mead moved to New York to study at the Art Student’s League. His teacher was the noted painter George Luks. He studied privately with Luks from 1927-29. By 1931 he had moved to Paris, where he established an art studio. Here he began studying printmaking under the tutelage of Stanley William Hayter at the experimental Atelier 17. And listen to this, other artists working at the Atelier during this time were a list of artists that would make the who’s who of all time: Joan Mir’o; Pablo Picasso; Albert Giacometti; Max Ernst; Yves Tanguy; Jean He’lion; and Wassily Kandisky.

The Meads returned to the United States before World War II and eventually settled in the town in which I was born, Carlsbad, New Mexico. Here he set up a studio and taught art classes. If I only knew then what I know now, I would have been asking him about all the famous and great artists that he knew.

Regrettably, I can not show any of Mr. Mead’s work on my sight because of the concern about enfringement of copywrite rules. His work is still being sold on the internet.