biography of Ralph Brownell MCGREW (1916-1994)

Birth place: Columbus, OH

Addresses: Cottonwood, AZ; Quemado, NM in 1976

Profession: Painter, sculptor, author

Studied: Alhambra, CA with Lester Bonar; Otis Art Inst., Los Angeles, CA, four years with full scholarship & special faculty awards; fellowship, Am. Inst. Fine Arts; also with Edouard Vysekal, Ralph Holmes & E. Roscoe Shrader.

Exhibited: Cowboy Artists Am., Cowboy Hall Fame, Oklahoma City; Death Valley Invitational, CA; All-Calif. Invitational, Laguna Beach, 1959-62; Charles Russell Rendezvous Invitational, Helena, MT, 1972; Springville Utah Invitational; O'Brien's Art Emporium, Scottsdale, AZ, 1970s. Awards: five first prizes, Death Valley Invitational, 1961-68; gold medal for drawing & silver medal for painting, 1970; gold medal for drawing, 1972, Cowboy Hall Fame

Member: Cowboy Artists Am.

Work: Cowboy Hall Fame Permanent Coll., Okla. City, OK; DeSaisset Gal., Univ. Santa Clara, CA; Read Mullan Gal. Western Art, Phoenix, AZ; Mus. Northern Arizona Permanent Coll., Flagstaff, AZ; Diamond M. Mus., Snyder, TX.

Comments: McGrew first worked as a movie set decorator. Preferred media: oils, charcoal. Positions: chairman, Stacey Scholar Foundation. Teaching: asst. art instr., Otis Art Inst. Publications: auth., "Artist on the Colorado," 1961 & auth., "Tewa-quaptewa, Hopi Chief," 1961, Desert magazine; auth., "Water of Life for God's Red Children," This Day magazine, 1965; auth., "The Art of R. Brownell McGrew," Arizona Highways, July, 1969.

Sources: WW73; Ed Ainsworth, Painters of the Desert (Desert Magazine Press, 1960 & 1961); Dorothy Harmsen, Harmsen's Western Americana (Northland Press, 1971); The West and Walter Bimson (Univ. of Arizona Mus. Art, 1971)