Major influences and haunting imagery on this artist are growing up in southern Illinois, the death of his father in the Korean War before he got to know him, and the blindness of his brother.

In 1967, he graduated from Southern Illinois University's commercial art program and worked for an engraving firm in Denver. In 1979, he moved to New Mexico. Inspired by the landscape and Indians he saw in Taos, he became a full-time painter.

In the mid-1990s, he lived briefly in New York City and Livingston, Montana, but returned to New Mexico where he located a studio behind his former wife's art gallery in Santa Fe.

Source:
Southwest Art

John Axton uses simple, dramatic, often haunting imagery. His minimal horizons, even a single marble - are intended to draw the viewer into the canvas to peacefully contemplate the fusion of reality and imagination. Axton was awarded a "Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award" by his alma mater, Southern Illinois University in 1988 when they established a summer arts program in his name.

His inclusion in "Covering the West", the prestigious traveling exhibition curated by the editors of Southwest Art magazine in 1996, introduced Axton's art to visitors of the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM, the Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, OK , the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, CA and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO.

Axton has exhibited in several group museum shows including the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York, the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, the McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX, and the Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia, PA. His work is in the permanent collections of the Pratt Museum in New York and The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM.

Education: Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL

Professional Data
1983 Pratt Museum, New York, NY - Las Trampas, lithograph, permanent collection
1984 Museum of Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, oil on canvas, permanent collection
1984 McNay Museum, San Antonio TX - Group Show
1984-85 Collective Artists Traveling exhibit, "Art and the Law", St. Paul, MN
1985 Chosen as poster artist for Denver Center for the Performing Arts
1986 Cover Illustration for the album of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra "Symphony No. 9 from the New World" by Dvorak
1986 Denver Art Museum Group Show - Breckenridge Gallery, Breckenridge, CO
1986 Chosen as poster artist for Denver Center for the Performing Arts
1988 Awarded the outstanding Alumni Achievement Award by the Southern Illinois University College of Technical Careers, Carbondale, IL
1989 Southern Illinois University Press published book titled Axton
1989 Southern Illinois University "John Axton Institute", Held in Carbondale, IL
1991 Collection of 20 Works donated to permanent collection of Siu
1994 The Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY Group Exhibit
1994 Philadelphia Museum Group Exhibit
1994 Phoenix Art Museum - original drawing donated for auction
1995-96 Covering the West, The Best of SW Art, Traveling Exhibition
2000-2004 The other side of The West, Traveling Exhibition, Desert Caballeros, Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix AZ, The Phipen Museum, Prescott, AZ, The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR, Colorado Springs, CO, Grace Museum, Abilene TX, MSC Forsyth Center Galleries, College Station, TX, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX