Fame is fickle, many Montana artists have risen to national status, but few remain in the limelight. Greene established a following in his day, and is still collected by sophisticated collectors who like paintings that reflect the Montana landscape. Owners like to point to their paintings and explain the location and the significance of Greene’s work.
Greene was born in Dover, NJ, his father was an artist, who died when he was about eight years old. Like many children in that day with a deceased father, he quit school to go to work and got his first job as an errand boy for a jewelry firm in Newark. Newark was a hotbed for the jewelry arts at that time. In his twenties, he worked his way west arriving in Billings, MT in 1916, where he used his childhood job skills to land another job with a jewelry store.
World War I came along and Greene was drafted. Hoping to be sent overseas, instead the military used his jewelry skills to repair optical instruments, ending up in Frankfort, KY. After the war he returned to Newark, spending some time with his mother, but shortly felt the call to go back to Montana. He returned to Billings and he set up his own jewelry store and starting spending his free time painting.
In 1927 he went to LA to study at the Otis Art Institute. After two years of art school he once again returned to Billings. This time setting up his jewelry business in the Stapleton Building where he had a large studio. It was there that he started teaching art classes a couple nights a week during the off seasons, keeping the summer free for his own painting.
By 1933 he held his first annual exhibit in the studio. He continued to develop his own artistic skills and in the summer of 1937 he went to Provincetown to study with George Elmer Browne. By the 1940s he was earning a living from his paintings, and in 1946 he designed and had built his mountain studio in the Beartooth Range at Rosebud Lake, the inspiration for numerous paintings.
In the case of “October Jewel” painted in 1957, this was done near Columbus, MT, about 50 miles east of Billings. Greene frequently spent his time outdoors painting directly from nature. The golden trees are ablaze with color and the riverbed has dwindled down to a small stream. The early morning frost has worn off and now the sky is a cloudy blue.
 |
| October Jewel -1957 Near Columbus, Montana Acrylic on Canvas #1746, 24" X 30" |
From a Great Falls Tribune article drafted by Mr. Reichelt in 1963, he quoted Greene: “To create a painting, should be like telling a story to a friend. The grammar, the choice of words, the thought, the knowledge of the subject, plus the joy of the telling, makes the difference between a good or a crude story. Just so in painting. The technique, the colors and the knowledge of the subject are most important, but without feeling and inspiration, and the sheer delight in the subject, the resulting painting will be short of being a work of art.”
On April 22, 1974, Greene went out to paint an old barn in the Pryor Mountains, he died at age 80 on his way home. Greene's wife Ella kept an inventory of every painting by Greene. He accomplished 2505 major works before his death. Today, Meadowlark Gallery (online and Joliet, MT) keeps track of the inventory and ownership.
Comments
Post a Comment