Additional Information
Provenance:
Phippen Museum, A Collector’s Dream: The Walter E. Kessler Collection, Prescott, AZ, 1999
Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ
Old Pueblo Museum
Born in Los Angeles in 1920 as the last breaths of the Old West still lingered in the Pacific air, Melvin Warren didn’t wait long to head deeper in the Southwest to seek out adventure. After brief stints in Arizona and New Mexico, Warren landed in Texas at just 14 years old. Life on the ranch was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the Air Force. At the conclusion of the war, the young artist attended Texas Christian University, where he received a degree in fine arts. He worked in commercial art during the day, but after clocking out of his job he pulled his focus to paintings with Western themes and subjects, including images of cowboys and cattle, horses, Mexican vaqueros and bandits, desert nocturnes and much more. In addition to being voted into the Cowboy Artists of America, Warren was also collected by President Lyndon Johnson, a fellow Texan.