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Tom Lovell "INVITATION TO TRADE"

TomLovell

1982

"INVITATION TO TRADE"

Limited Edition Artwork consistingof 1000 Prints Hand Signed and Numbered 150 / 1000

The Original Painting "Invitation toTrade" was created by Tom Lovell (1909-1997), and inspired by the TrueLife Personal Journals written by Charles Larpenteur (1807-1872).  The Journals of Charles Larpenteur spannedthe time period between 1833 through 1872, and these journals were firstpublished in 1898 and again in  the 1930stitled "Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri".

ADownloadable or Online Readable Version of the above mentioned Journal isavailable at this link: http://archive.org/details/fortyyearsafurt00unkngoog

A BriefDescription of "Invitation to Trade" Artwork by Tom Lovell: In the 1830s and 1840s trading in theSettlements and Villages was forbidden by law and competition with the BritishHudson Bay Company was ferocious. Somedegree of persuasion was in order to apply the Fur Trade so in his own words" when trouble was expected in bringing the chiefs to the fort, a sled wasbrought out to the Indian encampments, having a small keg of liquor placed uponit to treat the gentlemen a band of music was also in attendance. The instruments consisted of a clarinet, adrum, a violin and a triangle it was almost impossible for the Indians torefuse such an invitation."

Created : 1978, Issued in 1982.

Measurements Framed:  34" High x 27" Wide

Image Area: 25 1/2" High x 19" Wide

This is a LimitedEdition of 1000 Prints with the Print offered being Hand Signed and Numbered bythe Artist: Tom Lovell 150/1000 Framed immediately upon purchase in aMuseum Quality Solid Walnut Wood Frame.

 A Brief Description of Artist TomLovell:

Tom Lovell was born in New YorkCity in 1909. He developed an early interest in the American Indian.  As a youth, he and his mother visited the NewYork Museum of Natural History where he sketched Native American weapons,clothing and artifacts.  In 1931 hegraduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.  While at Syracuse Lovell began illustratingfor "Pulp" magazines, earning $6 a drawing and $60 a cover.

AtSyracuse Lovell met his future wife, Cloyd Simmons, a fellow art student andsometime model.  They married in 1934.During the Great Depression, Lovell illustrated for "The Shadow"magazine, "Wild West Weekly" and others.  He then turned to the "Slick"magazines such as Colliers and Cosmopolitan, and he illustrated manuscripts forwriter Edna Ferber, Sinclair Lewis and others.

TomLovell was beyond draft age when World War II began; however, he and otherartists joined the Marine Corps in 1944 to become combat artists.  Lovell and his artist friend, John Clymer,were sent to Washington, D.C. where they were assigned to illustrate Marinepublications "LeatherneckMagazine" and the Marine Corps Gazette and to do a series of largepaintings on Marine Corps history that now hang in the Marine headquarter inWashington. Following the war, Lovell did a series of assignments for NationalGeographic magazine, Life magazine and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter DaySaints.

Tom Lovell Awards and Recognition:

Tom Lovell was elected Academician National Cowboy Hallof Fame, 1973

Elected member, Cowboy Artists of America, 1975

Numerous other awards include Prix de West, Gold Medal,1974 and Prix de West, Gold Medal 1986

National Cowboy Hall of Fame

Cowboys Artists Silver Medal for oil, 1975

Cowboy Hall of Fame Gold Medal for oil, 1976

Franklin Mint Gold Medal, 1974

His paintings reside in prominent collections whichinclude:

The Cowboy Hall of Fame

U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters

U. S. Capitol Armed Forces Committee Room

New Britain Museum, Connecticut

National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.

Revolutionary soldier used as the trademark ofContinental Insurance Company

Tom Lovell and his daughter Deborah were killed in anautomobile accident in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 29, 1997.

ABrief Description of Subject Charles Larpenteur:

The son of French immigrants who settled in Maryland, Charles Larpenteur(1807-1872) was so eager to see the real American West that he talked himselfinto a job with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in 1833.  When William Sublette and Robert Campbell soldout to the American Fur Company a year later they recommended the steady andsober young Larpenteur to Kenneth McKenzie, who hired him as a clerk. Over thenext forty years, as a company man and as an independent agent, the Frenchmanwould ply the fur trade on the upper Missouri River.

Based on daily journals kept by Charles Larpenteur, this memoir isunparalleled in describing the business side and social milieu of the fur tradeconducted from wintering houses and sub-posts in the Indian country.  As Paul L. Hedren notes in his introduction,Larpenteur moved comfortably among Indians and all levels of the tradeshierarchy.  But he lived during a timeof transition and decline in the business, and his vivid recital of hispersonal affairs often seems to bear out his feeling that he was born formisfortune.  His lasting legacy is this book, which isreprinted from the one-volume Lakeside Classics edition of 1933.