Howard Terpning

Howard Terpning was born in Oak Park, Illinois. He postponed his higher education to serve in the Marine Corps from 1945 through 1946. Following his military service, he studied figure painting at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and then spent the next 25 years working as a successful commercial artist in Chicago and New York. He gave up commercial work in the 1970s and moved to Tucson, where he began producing historic images of Plains Indian cultures. Terpning was elected to the Cowboy Artists of America and the National Academy of Western Art in 1979. He lives and works north of Tucson, and the people of the Great Plains are still the main focus of his paintings.