LaVerne Nelson Black

LaVerne Nelson Black began painting as a child creating his own materials from natural substances. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. From 1908 to 1925 he traveled throughout the Southwest during the summers and spent the rest of the year in Chicago and New York doing illustration and commission work. His small sculptures were sold at Tiffany’s in New York. In 1925 he moved to Taos, New Mexico and then in the1930s to Phoenix where he did commission work for the Santa Fe Railway and other commercial and illustration work along with his fine art paintings. During the 1930s he participated in the Federal Art Project and painted a mural for the Phoenix post office.