Terpning, Howard

The most celebrated contemporary artist of the American West, Howard Terpning was born in Oak Park, Illinois and studied at the Chicago Academy and the American Academy of Art. He became a commercial artist in Chicago and New York, where his film posters, including the one for The Sound of Music, have become part of American film culture. When Winchester Arms hired him, Terpning returned to his first love: Native Americans and the West. He threw himself into history and culture, of the Plains Indians in particular. In 1975, he gave up his lucrative career in commercial art and headed West, settling in Tucson. Terpning would quickly become a renowned painter in the grand Western tradition, combining superb draftsmanship, authenticity as regards the material cultures of indigenous peoples, and a storyteller’s gift.