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Archie Boyd Teater

American Landscape and Genre Painter

(1901 - 1978)

by Lester D. Taylor

Archie Boyd Teater, a western landscape and genre artist who painted in an impressionist style was born in Boise, Idaho. Teater knew at a very young age that he wanted to be an artist, and although not finishing eighth grade he was able to study at the Portland Art Museum (1921-22) and Art Students League in New York (1935-37, 1941-45) with some of the country's finest artists and art teachers. He was an enormously prolific painter, with paintings numbering in the thousands that range from raw turn-of-the-century logging and mining camps in the West, to the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming, street scenes in cowboy and mining towns, St.Patrick's Cathedral and Central Park in New York, the San Francisco skyline, exotic markets in North Africa, the Near East and Asia, plus a historically accurate portrayal of Custer's Last Stand.

Teater painted outdoors in every kind of weather, including rain, snow, sleet, and sub-zero temperatures. Teater painted entirely in oil, usually on canvas, but occasionally on wood or canvas board. In his youth, he did a lot of wood carving and some sculpting, and at least one early painting exists that was carved in relief before being painted. However, in his mature years, his medium appears to have been exclusively oil. Although Teater was at base a nomad, the one constant in his life was Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he kept a studio and painted the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole history and life for 50 summers. In the 1950s, he and his wife had built on a bluff overlooking the Snake River near Hagerman, Idaho, the only artist studio-residence ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

During the last 20 years of their lives, the Teaters traveled to more than 100 countries. Teater painted in every one of these, eventually amassing an international collection of close to 500 canvases. Following Patricia Teater's death in 1981, the Teaters' personal collection of more than 1200 paintings was left to a Fund for Handicapped Children in Boise, Idaho. He had one-man shows in New York City, his paintings hung in shows in the Metropolitan and other museums, as well as in U.S. Embassies around the world. His paintings were in a number of important private collections, including those of Averill Harriman, Laurence Rockefeller, Godfrey Rockefeller, George S. Amory, H. Bliss, Bennett Cerf, Henry P. Cole, and Mrs. Charles de Rham.

His is an extremely interesting story. Not only is Teater's art beautiful and important, but he led a fascinating life as well. Like most serious painters, he had an extraordinary drive to paint that emerged at an early age and remained until the day he died.