Millard Sheets "Three Gay Birds" Lithograph

This is an original Millard Sheets lithograph titled "Three Gay Birds". This piece is in original condition unframed. The Overall size of the print measuring 23" x 19". Ed. 21/370 signed and numbered in pencil by artist.
 

Millard Sheets
By the early 1930s, he was well on his way to national recognition as a prominent American artist. He was exhibiting works in Paris, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Houston, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Ventura and many other cities throughout the United States. At home in Los Angeles, he was recognized as the leading figure and driving force behind the California Style watercolor movement.

Between 1935 and 1941, the recognition, awards, and his output of high quality art increased. He was mentioned in numerous issues of Art Digest, had a color reproduction in the book Eyes on America, and in 1935 at age twenty eight, he was the subject of a book published in Los Angeles. Sales of art enabled him to travel to Europe, Central America and Hawaii, where he painted on location. Although his watercolor painting techniques during this period varied from very tight to very loose, his personal style always came through.

The 30 foot high mosaic on the Mercantile Continental Building in downtown Dallas was created in 1959.
During World War II, he was an artist-correspondent for Life magazine and the United States Army Air Forces in India and Burma. Many of his works from this period document the scenes of famine, war and death that he witnessed. This experience also affected his post war art for a number of years. Many of his works from the 1940s, painted in California and Mexico, reflect these mood shifts, especially when he used dark tonal values and depressing subject matter. After the 1950s, his style changed again, this time featuring brighter colors and often depicting subjects from his travels around the world.

Watercolor and oil painting was only part of Sheets' art career. Through his teaching at Chouinard Art Institute, Otis Art Institute, Scripps College and other institutions, hundreds of artists were taught how to paint, and then guided into an art career. He was director of the art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Fair for many years and brought world class art to Southern California. During the Great Depression, he worked with Edward Bruce to hire artists for the Public Works of Art Project, the first New Deal art project during the Great Depression. In 1946, he served as a president of the California Water Color Society. In later years he worked as an architect, illustrator, muralist, printmaker and juried art exhibitions.

Beginning in 1952, working directly for Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr., Sheets not only designed the mosaics for dozens of branch offices of Home Savings of America throughout California, he designed the buildings as well, and coordinated contributions from other artists such as sculptor Albert Stewart. Outside of California he was commissioned for artwork at the Detroit Public Library, the Mayo Clinic, the dome of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., the University of Notre Dame Library, the Hilton Hotel in Honolulu and Mercantile National Bank in Dallas.