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Ellwood Graham (b. 1911)
Born in St. Louis, Ellwood Graham studied at the School of Fine Arts at Washington University before moving to California in 1934. He was active as a muralist under the Federal Art Project, but later moved away from the figurative style of the WPA towards a more abstract, surrealist style which evolved over time. In the early 1940s, he produced works with pictographic elements, as in Ignore The Broad Pacific. His works from this period were widely exhibited with one such example in the Art Institute of Chicago's landmark 1947 exhibition, Abstract and Surrealist Art in America. He was also frequently written about in the Arts & Architecture Magazine, the leading art journal in California during the 1940s and 1950s.

He settled in Pebble Beach, California, where he continued his career as an artist, and gained some notoriety for his association with John Steinbeck, for whom he painted a portrait. Graham has had dozens of solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Mexico and has won numerous prizes for his paintings. His work is held in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum, de Young Museum; Museum of New Mexico, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum.


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