John W. Wright (1863 - 1949)

Born 23 Mar 1863 in Miller, MO

Ancestors

Died 8 Feb 1949 at age 85 in Eugene, MO

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Biography

JOHN WRIGHT, or "Painter John" was a native artist of the Missouri Ozarks. He was born during the Civil War on 23 March 1863. He was the eighth and last child of Elizabeth Mace Thompson and James Lawrence Wright. He was a grandson of Henry and Elizabeth Tomson. John grew up on the family homestead two and one half miles north of Tuscumbia, in Miller County, where his father owned and operated a grist and carding mill powered by the pooled waters of one of central Missouri's largest springs. John left home early to live with his brother, Joseph Thompson Wright and family. He began to paint while still a youth, influenced by Indian lore, the steamboat commerce on the nearby Osage River, and the rural countryside. Young John formed a traveling musical review and variety show with cousin Dan Fraser Thompson, and friends Edward Kallenbach and Ed Dresser. John played the banjo, Dan played the guitar, and Ed the harmonica, and they traveled part of Arkansas and Southern Missouri in the 1880's. After his marriage in 1891, John turned to his skills in mixing paint pigment and oils for a living, and he began house painting for a growing number of customers. In spite of his need to support a growing family with a trade, John Wright never lost interest in his oil paintings, and countless old homes in Miller, Cole and Camden Counties bear his trademark of lovely little landscapes or florals painted on door panels or windows. Many exist to this day. During his working years, "Painter John" also painted steamboats, and his sign-writing skills are still in evidence on a few churches and businesses of Miller County. Not only was he artistically talented, he was also mechanically gifted as well--building a power press for his brother, J. P. Wright. The press was used to publish the first issue of the Western Preacher (a religious monthly printed in Tuscumbia). John Wright married Lillian Ingram, and they became the parents of nine children. The children of John and Lillian appear to have been unusually talented in the arts, and their descendants are featured in this supplement to Henry Tomson's prose and poetry. After the death of his wife, retirement to Eugene, MO in the late 1920's, and until his own death in 1939, John Wright worked on his paintings. Slowly and deliberately, with steady hand, he turned out an estimated 100 to 125 works of art. Some were on canvas but most on a smooth sided fiberboard. Sadly, during the height of the Great Depression, unable to afford other materials, he painted on common corrugated box board. For many who knew Painter John Wright these paintings are the most prized of all. Seldom did John's painting sell for more than $2.50. Most were simply given to friends and relatives who have retained them to the present day, and all are now scattered throughout Missouri and the nation. Some paintings did not survive. His style was a mixture of quaint "folk art" figures of animals and people, combined with skilled representations of the form, colors and textures of nature in the wild. He had a penchant for intricate and sometimes extraneous detail, through which he expressed his sense of humor and humanity. Many of his works represent actual places or historic events, drawn from memory or imagination. Being a religious man, some of his paintings depict Biblical events. Larry and I have inherited one of John's paintings,from Larry's grandmother Florence Wright. It is a beautiful picture dipicting Fall in the Missouri countryside.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5532097/john-wright : accessed 02 November 2021), memorial page for JOHN WRIGHT (23 Mar 1863–8 Feb 1939), Find a Grave Memorial ID 5532097, citing Glover Chapel Cemetery, Camden County, Missouri, USA ; Maintained by Linda Walden (contributor 47154804) .