Edgar Payne

Edgar Payne began his career in Chicago as a sign and house painter at the age of 14. He briefly enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago but dropped out after a few classes. He continued to paint, creating a number of murals for buildings around Chicago and joining the Chicago Society of Artists and the Palette and Chisel Club. He began traveling around the country looking for new subjects and on a trip to California in 1909 he fell in love with the landscape. He relocated to Santa Barbara in 1915 and made California his permanent home.

In 1917 Payne was given a commission by the Santa Fe Railroad to paint landscapes in the Southwest. He painted many works en plein air and also did numerous sketches from which he later did studio paintings. Payne worked quickly and completed about one painting per day. He became known for his majestic Sierra Nevada Mountain scenes but depicted many other locations as well including the coast of Laguna Beach, the Canadian Rockies, the French and Swiss Alps, the Italian and French Riviera, and fishing scenes of Italy and France.

Source: http://www.edgarpayne.net/ and AskArt.com