Colorado & Regional Art

John Ward Lockwood was born on September 22, 1894, in Atchison, Kansas. Lockwood received his formal art training at the University of Kansas (1912–1914) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1914–1916) where his teacher, Henry McCarter, introduced him to Paul Cézanne’s geometric landscapes. During World War I Lockwood served in the 89th Division of the American Expeditionary Force, fighting in the Argonne and Saint-Mihiel engagements for which he won the Croix de Guerre. After a short stint as art editor of Capper Publications in the United States, he returned to France in 1921, attending classes at the Académie Ranson in Paris. Feeling restricted by its academic curriculum, he left for Provence to paint with fellow artist, Kenneth Adams, in the winter of 1921–1922. Coming back to the U.S. in 1922, Lockwood worked as a commercial artist in Kansas City. His wife (whom he married in 1924) encouraged him to pursue his art career. They moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1926 at the invitation of Kenneth Adams, where they lived until 1939. Lockwood’s murals done for the federal art programs in the 1930s and early 1940s prompted him to simplify the forms of the regional themes he painted for the Taos County Courthouse, Post Office Department Building in Washington, D.C. and for post offices in Wichita, Kansas; Lexington, Kentucky; Edinburg, Texas and Hamilton, Texas. Lockwood taught lithography at the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs in the summers of 1932 and 1933, and six years later became the Chair of the Department of Art at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1940 he moved to San Francisco where he experimented with abstraction and assemblage before re-enlisting in the army for World War II in 1942, advancing to the rank of colonel. He only began producing work again in 1946. From 1948 to 1961 Lockwood taught at the University of California at Berkeley, often summering in Taos. He took a leave of absence from Berkeley to teach at the University of Kansas (1957–1959), permanently returning to Taos in 1961 where he spent his final years. He had solo shows at the Rehn Gallery (New York City), St. Louis Art Museum (Missouri), Wichita Art Museum (Kansas), Mulvane Art Museum (Topeka, Kansas), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas), University of Texas at Austin and the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, California). He exhibited in group shows at the Salon d’Automne (Paris); Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Weyhe Gallery and Salons of America (New York City); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia); Corcoran Biennials (Washington, D.C.); Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois); Dallas Museum of Fine Art (Texas); Denver Art Museum; Museum of New Mexico (Santa Fe) and the de Young (San Francisco, California).