Follow The Sun: Robert Lougheed

He was the man behind Mobil Oil Company’s legendary flying Pegasus and the creator of numerous magazine covers familiar to a generation of readers. Yet even when fully engaged in commissioned work, Robert Lougheed never ceased to paint for himself, as well, and never drew a divide between the two. Both were about expressing the essence and particularity of life. Lougheed was a true “painter’s painter.”

Follow the Sun is the first book to showcase the full breadth of Lougheed’s artistic legacy. More than 400 full-color reproductions trace his trajectory from early Canadian studies of working horses to commercial work to western scenes and timeless plein-air oils of European subjects, with much in between.

A quiet, confident man dedicated to painting, Robert Lougheed was born in 1910 and grew up on a farm in Ontario, Canada, the reins of a working horse in one hand and a drawing pencil in the other. After a youthful stint as a newspaper illustrator for the Toronto Star, he studied in New York with Dean Cornwell and Frank Vincent DuMond of the famed Art Students League.

After earning a place among renowned illustrators, Lougheed joined the Cowboy Artists of America and helped found the National Academy of Western Art. Both honored him with multiple awards. He painted prolifically abroad, bringing back scores of fresh oils, watercolors, and sketches from France and England. Wherever he traveled—the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Alaska, or the American Southwest—he painted incessantly. He mentored many young artists, schooling them in his “creative truth,” which included the necessity of creating from life rather than photographs. Wherever he went, he found horses, and he honored them through his art.

Author Don Hedgpeth makes clear why “contemporary western art owes a major debt of gratitude to Bob Lougheed.” This book takes a long stride toward repaying that debt and introduces a remarkable artist to any who have not yet had the pleasure.