John Anthony Conner (1892-1971) (Eagle Rock)

“John Anthony Conner first saw the light of day in Chicago, Illinois. Like Topsy, he ‘just growed,’ but with this vast difference, he just grew up with art, and there was plenty of the right kind of artistic nourishment to keep him growing, artistically, for a long time.

His father died when he was four years old, and he was sent to live with his maternal grandfather. Of these early days, he says, ‘My boyhood was spent with grandfather, Charles L. Anthony, of Adams, Massachusetts, who said I began to draw when big enough to hold a pencil. ‘Gramp’ encouraged me to the extent of fitting out a small room off his study as my ‘studio’ and supplying water colors, charcoal, and a large roll of paper. ‘He was writing the genealogy of the Anthony family, and his manuscript on the life of Gilbert Stuart (famous Revolutionary portrait painter whose mother was Elizabeth Anthony) quickened my desire to draw and paint. Steel engravings, wood cuts, and silhouettes for this book were my first ‘studies’ and those of Susan B. Anthony, Gilbert Stuart and the Old Quaker Meeting House, were my favorites. ‘I spent several years in the art departments of National Advertisers; later traveling in the interests of outdoor displays of eastern corporations.

I have made oil or pencil landscape sketches in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, No. Carolina, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Canada and Mexico.’ ‘The deserts, Mojave and Coachella valley, are the subjects of my paintings today.

My ‘art school has been, or rather IS,out of doors under a sunlight [sic] sky where the light is warm and it is a bit cooler beneath.’ Although ‘Gramp’ Anthony has passed on to a land even more beautiful than that his grandson paints, his kindly encouragement of a little boy’s work is still bearing fruit, for John Anthony Conner is the kind of artist who is, and always will be, studying the art of others, always striving to capture just a bit more of the desert lure and never believing there is nothing left for him to learn in the realm of art. In place of ‘Gramps’ hearty approval, he now has the encouragement of a little brown-eyed wife who has never balked at traversing any trail he may choose to travel in behalf of his art.

John Anthony Conner has been an exhibitor in both of the previous Eagle Rock art exhibits. Shortly after the 1929 exhibition he resigned from a commercial position and determined to make his livelihood with his fine art. That he has not found it necessary to return to commercial art is ample evidence that he is succeeding in his chosen field. T. M. Knudsen, formerly of Eagle Rock, but now residing in Glendale, saw Mr. Conner’s pictures at the 1929 exhibit and purchased two of them.

Last year, Mr. and Mrs. W. West of Hill drive, fell in love with two Conner desert scenes and purchased them shortly after the close of the exhibition. Wherever Conner canvases of the desert are shown they are universal favorites. He captures the charm and flower-carpeted sand dunes and paints the rose and mauve atmosphere of desert sunsets which throws a misty veil over majestic mountains rising far in the distance like silent guardians of the sandy wastes.” per Eagle Rock Sentinel, Nov. 6, 1931, p. 2

Source: Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, MORRO BAY (including LOS OSOS, BAYWOOD PARK and CAYUCOS) ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY BEFORE 1960 (Publications in [Southern] California Art, vol. 13, no. I), Los Angeles: Dustin Publications, 2016.

Born in Franklin Grove, Illinois, John Conner became an impressionist painter of desert landscapes, and he also did portraits and western genre. He was a descendant of Susan B. Anthony and portraitist Gilbert Stuart.

John Anthony Conner served in World War I, then married and moved to Los Angeles where he worked in the art departments of movie studios including MGM. He was a resident of Eagle Rock, and as a fine art painter, did work that included desert landscapes, seascapes, coastal views, missions and cowboy-Indian genre.

Source:
"Artists in California, 1786-1940" by Edan Hughes