Archie Boyd Teater - Instruction

Instruction

Teater's first formal art instruction began in the winter of 1921-22 when (using money he had accumulated from trapping mink and muskrat) he left Boise to study for two winters at the Portland Art Museum. His teachers at the Museum were Clara J. Stephens (1877–1952) and Henry F. Wentz (1876–1965). In the early 1930s, a number of eastern summer visitors in Jackson Hole felt that Teater would benefit from exposure to the New York art scene and urged him to go to New York for further training and study. Teater accordingly left Idaho for New York City in September 1935 and began the first of what would eventually become eight winters of study at the Art Students League (1935–37, 1942–45, and 1956). His patron saint enabling him to do was Frances (Mrs. Charles) de Rham, who lived on Park Avenue and had a ranch in Jackson Hole where she spent summers. His instructors at the Art Students League between 1935 and 1945 included Homer Boss (1882–1956), Alexander Brook (1898–1980), George Brandt Bridgman (1865–1943), John Carroll (1892–1959), Frank Vincent Dumond (1865–1951), Reginald Marsh (1898–1954), and William C. McNulty (1884–1963). His final formal study at the Art Students League was in early 1956, when he sat for four life classes from Edwin Dickensen (1891–1971), Ivan Olinsky (1878–1962), and Robert Philipp (1895–1981).

In September 1941, Teater married (Agnes) Patricia Wilson, who was two years his junior. Patricia Wilson had been in Jackson Hole during the summer of 1941 for health reasons, and was from a totally different social and educational background. Orphaned at a young age, she had been raised on the west side of Chicago by a wealthy but distant and unloving grandmother. She had degrees in journalism and geography, and had studied and traveled extensively in Europe. In addition, she had considerable formal exposure to art. But, like Teater, she too was a nomad. Their first winters after marriage were spent in New York City, where they lived in Greenwich Village and studied at the Art Students League, with Patricia taking sculpture lessons from William Zorach. The summers of 1943 and 1944 were spent painting in Ogunquit, Maine, and Rockport, Massachusetts. In the summer of 1945, they returned to Jackson Hole and opened a studio gallery on the Jackson town square. A studio in Jackson then remained a fixture until their deaths.

Despite having, after the late-1950s, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on a bluff overlooking the Snake River near Hagerman, Idaho, the Teaters only real constant in terms of residence was the summers spent in Jackson Hole. At the end of a summer, they would usually spend several weeks in Idaho, either at their home in Hagerman or with friends in or around Boise. Before 1958, winters were spent traveling and painting in the U.S., but beginning in 1958 their travels were mostly international. Altogether, the Teaters visited some 115 countries of the world, and Teater sketched or painted in them all. The paintings from these travels formed what was called their 'International Collection', and came to include more than 500 oils. Because of deteriorating health, their permanent residence for the last few years of their lives was in Carmel, California.

In general, and especially after his marriage, Teater was a loner in terms of art. He was a member of no school, and except possibly in his New York years, he almost always painted by himself. He often gave clinics and demonstrations, but never offered classes or formal instruction.