Ward Lockwood

{{short description|American painter (1894–1963)}}

File:Harvest of the Rio Grande Valley (mural study, Edinburgh, Texas Post Office) SAAM-1974.28.25 1.jpg

John Ward Lockwood (September 22, 1894–July 6, 1963) was an American painter, art teacher and veteran of two world wars.{{Cite web |title=Ward Lockwood {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/ward-lockwood-2972 |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=americanart.si.edu |language=en-US |archive-date=2021-05-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509175933/https://americanart.si.edu/artist/ward-lockwood-2972 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=John Ward Lockwood (American, b.1894, d.1963) |url=https://collection.mcnayart.org/persons/64/john-ward-lockwood-american-b1894-d1963 |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=McNay Art Museum |language=en |archive-date=2022-01-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220122185056/https://collection.mcnayart.org/persons/64/john-ward-lockwood-american-b1894-d1963 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=University of California: In Memoriam, April 1964 |url=http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb6g500784&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00008&toc.depth=1&toc.id= |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=texts.cdlib.org |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142223/http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb6g500784&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00008&toc.depth=1&toc.id= |url-status=live }}

During the New Deal era of public artwork commissions for new federal buildings, Lockwood was hired by the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture to paint murals at the new post office buildings in Edinburg, Texas, and Hamilton, Texas, as well as at Taos County Courthouse,{{Cite web |title=Taos County Courthouse (former): Lockwood Murals - Taos NM |url=https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-taos-county-courthouse-lockwood-murals-taos-nm/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=Living New Deal |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-09-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220915210455/https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-taos-county-courthouse-lockwood-murals-taos-nm/ |url-status=live }} Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, in the lobby of the federal courthouse in Wichita, Kansas, and in a courtroom at the federal courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky. He also created two murals for what was then the Post Office headquarters building in Washington, D.C.{{Cite book |last1=Park |first1=Marlene |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10877506 |title=Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal |last2=Markowitz |first2=Gerald E. |publisher=Temple University Press |year=1984 |isbn=0-87722-348-3 |location=Philadelphia |oclc=10877506 |access-date=2022-10-11 |archive-date=2022-01-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220109032301/http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10877506 |url-status=live }}

Lockwood wrote that the mural in the Hamilton post office, Texas Rangers Singing in Camp, was “the most popular one I have done.”{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Art |date=2019-06-24 |title=Vintage Mural in Hamilton Post Office Depicts Texas Rangers Singing in Camp |url=https://texashighways.com/travel/photography/vintage-mural-in-hamilton-post-office-depicts-texas-rangers-singing-in-camp-2/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=Texas Highways |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142223/https://texashighways.com/travel/photography/vintage-mural-in-hamilton-post-office-depicts-texas-rangers-singing-in-camp-2/ |url-status=live }} The murals in Colorado Springs, on theme of “classic American theater,”{{Cite web |title=Classic American Theater Characters - PeakRadar.com |url=https://www.peakradar.com/public-art/classic-american-theater-characters/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=www.peakradar.com |language=en-US |archive-date=2021-10-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018230440/https://www.peakradar.com/public-art/classic-american-theater-characters/ |url-status=live }} will be removed sometime during or after 2022, “due to racist imagery and damage accumulated from their location in a food service area.”{{Cite web |title=Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center to remove controversial murals {{!}} Arts & Entertainment {{!}} gazette.com |url=https://gazette.com/arts-entertainment/colorado-springs-fine-arts-center-to-remove-controversial-murals/article_7ecf34cc-3ce5-11ec-8d7c-43071838e7da.amp.html |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=gazette.com |date=15 November 2021 |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142323/https://gazette.com/arts-entertainment/colorado-springs-fine-arts-center-to-remove-controversial-murals/article_7ecf34cc-3ce5-11ec-8d7c-43071838e7da.amp.html |url-status=live }} The Post Office (now Clinton Federal Building) murals were challenged for their depiction of Native Americans in the early 2000s.{{Cite web |last=Shott |first=Chris |date=2005-08-26 |title=Mural Dilemma |url=http://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/243495/mural-dilemma/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=Washington City Paper |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-10-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004235032/https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/243495/mural-dilemma/ |url-status=live }}

Lockwood advocated strongly for the only abstract art post office mural that was ever commissioned by the Section, Lloyd Ney’s New London Facets in New London, Ohio.{{Cite book |last=Marling |first=Karal Ann |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8223038 |title=Wall-to-wall America : a cultural history of post-office murals in the Great Depression |date=1982 |isbn=0-8166-1116-5 |edition=Third Printing, 1992 |location=Minneapolis |pages=296–297 |oclc=8223038}}

He studied at the University of Kansas, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, and Academy Ransom in Paris.{{Cite book |last=Division |first=Procurement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xvtLAQAAIAAJ |title=Bulletin, Section of Painting and Sculpture |date=1935 |language=en |access-date=2022-10-11 |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142223/https://books.google.com/books?id=xvtLAQAAIAAJ&newbks=0&hl=en |url-status=live }} He taught art at both UC Berkeley and the University of Texas.

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena hosted a show of his work in 1960, one of more than 30 one-man shows of his work.{{Cite web |title=Paintings by Ward Lockwood |url=https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1960-1969/paintings-by-ward-lockwood-/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=Norton Simon Museum |date=1960 |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142224/https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/1960-1969/paintings-by-ward-lockwood-/ |url-status=live }}

Born in Atchinson, Kansas, he served in both the 89th Division of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I{{Cite web |title=Parsons: Taos Art in Taos - Ward Lockwood in Taos |url=https://www.parsonsart.com/home/ward-lockwood |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=www.parsonsart.com |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124133635/https://www.parsonsart.com/home/ward-lockwood |url-status=live }} and in the Army Air Corps during World War II, retiring as a lieutenant colonel (possibly full colonel{{Cite web |title=Untitled by John Ward Lockwood - oil painting Kirkland Museum |url=https://www.kirklandmuseum.org/collections/work/untitled-garden-of-the-gods/ |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=Kirkland Museum |language=en-US |archive-date=2021-10-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019213728/https://www.kirklandmuseum.org/collections/work/untitled-garden-of-the-gods/ |url-status=live }}) in 1954. Involved with the Taos Artists Colony in the 1920s and 1930s, he died in Taos, New Mexico shortly after his retirement.

His wife was Martha Clyde Bonebrake (1891–1969).{{Cite web |title=Girl in New Mexico (Portrait of Clyde Lockwood) {{!}} National Portrait Gallery |url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_80.293_UNMT |access-date=2022-10-11 |website=npg.si.edu |archive-date=2022-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011142239/https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_80.293_UNMT |url-status=live }}