Wilfrid Provan Biography

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Wilfrid K. Provan was born in Philadelphia in 1923 and, at an early age, moved with his family to California. Completing high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines and saw action in the western Pacific during World War II.

Returning to California after the war he attended the School of Allied Arts in Glendale on the G.I. Bill, studying with Charles Payzant and Arthur Beaumont. By 1952 he was living in Palo Alto with his wife and three children and developing a reputation as a skilled watercolorist and documenter of California marine and farm scenes. Many of his paintings are closely-observed, plein-air renderings of boats and the coastline around the San Francisco Bay Area.

His paintings won numerous awards in California exhibitions, including the National Veterans' Art Exhibit (1949, -50); the Santa Cruz Annual Statewide Show (1954, -62,-64, -65, -68, -70, -73); and the Santa Clara County Fair Exhibition (1953, -54, -58, -66).

Provan was a member and First Vice-President of the Society of Western Artists and a member of the American Artist Professional League. He died in 1991 in Mountain View, California.

Submitted April 2004, from David Provan, son of the artist.

Courtesy of www.askart.com

California Watercolor