Lovell, Tom, 1909-1997

Born in New York City on February 5, 1909, Tom Lovell began illustrating for pulp magazines during his junior year in the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University. Meeting his future wife, Gloyd "Pink" Simmons at college, Lovell received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1931. He spent almost 40 years as an illustrator doing work for National Geographic Magazine, Life magazine, and Continental Life Insurance Company. In 1969 he left the world of illustrators and turned his attention to western art when the Abell-Hanger Foundation commissioned him to do a series of paintings depicting the southwest and early oil industry in the Permian Basin of West Texas. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1974. He had a long association with the Cowboy Artists of America winning numerous medals for his work. In 1973 he was a founding member of National Academy of Western Art at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center, now called the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. There, in 1992, he won the Prix de West award twice for his paintings and received the Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Robert Lougheed Memorial Award for Traditional Painter of Western History. On June 29, 1997, Lovell died in an automobile accident in Santa Fe, New Mexico.