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John Brock Lear Jr

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John Brock Lear, Jr. (1910 - 2008) was active/lived in Pennsylvania.  John Lear Jr is known for Figure, portrait and landscape painting, military artist.

Obituary from the Chestnut Hill Local newspaper Website, dated September 25, 2008

John B. Lear Jr., 98, of Chestnut Hill, a widely known local artist, died Sept. 17 at Chestnut Hill Hospital. He had been a resident of the Springfield Residence in Wyndmoor for the past two years. Mr. Lear's oil paintings, watercolors and drawings are in private collections in the United States and abroad and in the permanent collections of the Detroit Museum, the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center in Clearwater, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Reading Museum and the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, with which he had been associated since its opening in 1940. His work was displayed in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In Chestnut Hill, his paintings and drawings were seen often at the Hahn Gallery and at Woodmere.

Born and raised in Chestnut Hill, the son of John Brock and Helen James Lear, Mr. Lear attended Chestnut Hill Academy where he showed an early talent for art. He sa   ...  [Displaying 1000 of 5997 characters.]  Artist bio

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Similar artists

.  There are 24 similar (related) artists for John Brock Lear Jr available:    Emlen Pope Etting Jr,  Julius Bloch,  Cesare Ricciardi,  Clarence Ira Dreisbach,  William Horace (Bill) Littlefield,  Earl Horter,  Ranulph Bye,  Melville Stark,  Henry Rand,  John Berninger,  Samuel Phillips,  Arthur Meltzer,  Paul Cadmus,  Giovanni Martino,  Lee Gatch Jr,  Louis (Luigi) Bosa,  Larry (Laurence James) Day,  William Hilliard,  George Matthew Bruestle,  Joseph Meierhans,  Antonio Martino,  Abraham Hankins,  Frederick James Gill,  John Grabach



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Facts about John Brock Lear Jr

   John Brock Lear, Jr.  Born:  1910 - Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania
Died:   2008 - Glenside, Pennsylvania
Known for:  Figure, portrait and landscape painting, military artist

Biography from the Archives of askART

Obituary from the Chestnut Hill Local newspaper Website, dated September 25, 2008

John B. Lear Jr., 98, of Chestnut Hill, a widely known local artist, died Sept. 17 at Chestnut Hill Hospital. He had been a resident of the Springfield Residence in Wyndmoor for the past two years. Mr. Lear's oil paintings, watercolors and drawings are in private collections in the United States and abroad and in the permanent collections of the Detroit Museum, the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center in Clearwater, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Reading Museum and the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, with which he had been associated since its opening in 1940. His work was displayed in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In Chestnut Hill, his paintings and drawings were seen often at the Hahn Gallery and at Woodmere.

Born and raised in Chestnut Hill, the son of John Brock and Helen James Lear, Mr. Lear attended Chestnut Hill Academy where he showed an early talent for art. He said his inspiration came from two uncles who he said were "Sunday painters." He studied illustration under Thornton Oakley at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts).

During World War II he served in the Army cavalry in Fort Reilly, Kan., where he painted portraits of officers and their families. He also illustrated Army training manuals, booklets and charts. After the war, he returned to Chestnut Hill where he remained for the rest of his life. His life as an artist revolved around working as a freelance illustrator, teaching and creating paintings and drawings for exhibition. A trip to England in 1931 turned him into a lifelong Anglophile.

He returned to England at least 10 times and used his photos and his memory to create many striking landscapes. He called this work his "records," in which he captured the natural world with his artist's eye. His other work he described as "creations" – composites of realistic and yet disparate images in dreamlike landscapes. His major emphasis was on composition, and color. "In both paintings and drawings, my work has been described as semi-surrealistic or symbolic in content," Mr. Lear said. "The technique is closer to rendering rather than of a painterly quality."  Those who own and collected his work came faithfully to each new exhibit, and most of his work was sold by the end of each opening.

Mr. Lear continued to paint and draw until a few days before his death and was preparing for an exhibit in Stockton, N.J. His last exhibit was at the Chestnut Hill Gallery in May where friends gathered to celebrate his 98th birthday.

In addition to Woodmere, he was associated with the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Philadelphia Watercolor Club, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Art Teachers Association and the American Watercolor Society. A lifelong Phillies fan, he was overjoyed in later years when he made it to another opening day. He loved the Philadelphia Orchestra and spent many Friday afternoons at the Academy of Music.

Mr. Lear never married. He is survived by two nieces, Mary Randall Hopkins of Chestnut Hill and Susan Randall MacBride of Roxborough, and a nephew, John Lear Randall of New Gloucester, Maine. He was predeceased by a sister, Mary Lear Randall, and a brother, Henry Lear. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, 8000 St. Martins Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118, with interment at the Doylestown Cemetery.

Submitted 2022 by Philip Kieffer


Biography from Stephenson's Auctions

John Lear's art might have saved him from harm's way during World War II.

A niece, Susan MacBride, recalled that when John Lear was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, "the generals and the officers found out he was an artist [and] diverted his talents to doing portraits of the officers and their families."

Later, she said, he was assigned to illustrate military manuals, booklets and charts for service-wide distribution.

On Wednesday, John Brock Lear Jr., 98, artist and teacher, died of pneumonia at Chestnut Hill Hospital.  He lived in Wyndmoor.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center in Clearwater, the Reading Museum, and the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill.

His last exhibition was at the Chestnut Hill Gallery & Frame Shoppe in May, MacBride said, and close to his death he was preparing for a show in Stockton, N.J.

He worked in drawing, watercolor and oil.

Mr. Lear taught illustration at Rosemont College from 1955 to 1963, at the Hussian School of Art in Society Hill in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as at the Philadelphia College of Art.

From 1963 to 1975, he was the art director at the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education.

A 1928 graduate of the Chestnut Hill Academy, he studied illustration under Thornton Oakley at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts, forerunner of the University of the Arts, graduating in 1932.

Though he was not sent overseas during World War II, MacBride said, the surreal aspects of his art were influenced by "his horror at the destruction of life and the beauty of the world."

Mr. Lear was a member or associate of the American Watercolor Society, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Philadelphia Watercolor Club, the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Art Teachers Association and the Woodmere Art Museum.

Besides MacBride, Mr. Lear is survived by niece Mary Randall Hopkins and nephew John Lear Randall.

A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields, St. Martin's Lane at Willow Grove Avenue, in Chestnut Hill. Burial is at Doylestown Cemetery.

Source:

Written by Walter F. Naedele for the Philadelphia Inquirer
Submitted by Stephenson's Auction, Dec. 30, 2008


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