Don Weller is an American illustrator and painter.

Background

Weller grew up in

Pullman, Washington Pullman () is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Thr ...

and loved drawing from an early age. He started at Washington State University in their veterinary pre-med program but switched to art after two years. In 1960, after graduating, he moved to Los Angeles. His freelance work was very popular and he had work in three children's books and on five U.S. stamps.

Career

He did covers for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' and ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

'', and illustrated stories in ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'', ''

Boys' Life ''Scout Life'' (formerly ''Boys' Life'') is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Its target readers are boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18. The magazine‘s headquarters are in Irving, Texas. ''Scout Life'' is pu ...

'', ''

Pro Pro is an abbreviation meaning "professional". Pro, PRO or variants thereof may also refer to: People * Miguel Pro (1891–1927), Mexican priest * Pro Hart (1928–2006), Australian painter * Mlungisi Mdluli (born 1980), South African retired f ...

'' and '' Reader's Digest''. He designed posters for the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

Hollywood Bowl The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018. The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...

, and

1984 Los Angeles Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...

. He has taught at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and the Art Center in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

. Weller previously served as president for the

Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles (SILA) was founded in 1953 by a group of Southern California artists and designers "...to promote the professional status of illustration art as well as foster both philanthropic and educational goals". ...

. In 1984, he and his wife, Cha Cha, moved to Park City, Utah. He became interesting in riding cutting horses and started painting horses and cowboys at that time. In 2016, the Kimball Art Center had an exhibit called "Don Weller: Another Cowboy" which included 90 Western watercolors. , he lives in a farm in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

with his wife and their animals, where he paints pictures of cowboys and related subjects, and breeds and competes

cutting horses A cutting horse is a stock horse, typically an American Quarter Horse, bred and trained for cutting, a modern equestrian competition requiring a horse and rider to separate a single cow from a herd of cattle and prevent it from getting back to t ...

. Because of declining eyesight, he has turned to writing mystery novels set in Summit County, Utah. His first novel, ''Snap Chance'', was published in 2022, and features the cutting horses he so admires.

Awards and honors

The America's Horse in Art Show & Sale announced that Weller would be the signature artist for their 11th annual show in August 2018.

References

External links

* * 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American illustrators Painters from Utah Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American male artists {{US-illustrator-stub