John T. Donaldson, 86, Sporting Dog Painter
Hoodoo
Washington Post
June 25, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
John T. Donaldson, 86, an artist whose realistic watercolor and
oil paintings captured the grace, beauty and athletic prowess of
bluetick coonhounds, border collies, Jack Russell terriers,
German shorthaired pointers and other sporting dogs, died June 5
at his home in Falls Church. He had atherosclerosis and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease.
In 1970, Mr. Donaldson owned a commercial art studio and was
painting pictures, of barns primarily, when a friend urged him to
do an oil portrait of his champion shooting dog. "After a few
months, the painting was ready, and one thing led to another,"
Mr. Donaldson told Canine Images magazine in 1999. "Eventually, I
decided I'd much rather do this type of work and only kept on a
few commercial clients."
He was soon painting about 20 commissioned dog portraits
annually, either head studies or dogs in hunting or field trial
scenes. Beginning in 1973, he painted the winner of the Top Bird
Dog Award, presented annually by the Ralston Purina Co., and soon
began painting the winners for numerous other hunting dog
competitions.
"John Donaldson knows, understands and loves dogs, going back to
his first one, an Irish setter, when he was a boy," said Keith
Severin, quoted in American Field: The Sportsman's Newspaper of
America. Severin curated a 1991 retrospective of Mr. Donaldson's
bird dog paintings for the American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog
near St. Louis.
Mr. Donaldson was born in Springfield, Mass., and grew up in
White Plains, N.Y. His first experience around a bird dog came
after he received an Irish setter puppy when he was 13. A few
years later, a neighbor invited him to go pheasant hunting with a
springer spaniel. "I couldn't believe what I saw," he told Canine
Images.
While in high school in White Plains, he attended the Art
Student's League in New York City, where he studied anatomy with
the renowned George Bridgman. He went on to study art and
illustration for three years at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
In the years before World War II, he drew comic strips for Dell
Publishing Co. and worked for General Motors and Remington Arms.
He served in the Army Air Corps during the war, with the 8th Air
Force in England and France, and then moved to the Washington
area in 1944. From 1944 to 1950, he worked for the Naval Gun
Factory, for Reed Research, as art director, and for Ted
Christenson Associates, also as art director. From 1950 to 1960,
he was a partner in Design Directors before launching his career
as a self-employed commercial artist. He also taught art at
Montgomery College in Rockville.
Mr. Donaldson was a 52-year resident of Montgomery County. He was
a Boy Scout master in Brookmont, a member and president of the
Chevy Chase chapter of the Izaak Walton League and a member of
the Potomac Art League and St. Francis Episcopal Church in
Potomac. He had lived in Potomac from 1960 to 1996, when he moved
to Falls Church.
"I'm one of those lucky people," he told Canine Images. "I know
many people working at things they don't really like to get a
paycheck." He worked steadily until 2001, when a detached retina
forced him to lay down his brushes.
His marriage to Ann W. Donaldson ended in divorce.
Survivors include three daughters, Petie Donaldson Bonbrest of
Falls Church, Sally Donaldson Tomlin of Springfield, Va., and
Kate Donaldson Sarfaty of Maidens, Va.; two granddaughters; and
five great-grandchildren.
--
It's a big old goofy world. - John Prine