John W. Hilton (1904-1983) was doing well in the 1950's. His work was being recognized by people who counted. He was honored with a one man show at New York's Grand Central Gallery and was inducted in into the Salmagundi Club in New York. He was writing articles and having his work published regulary for Desert Magazine and Arizona Highways Magazine, and his paintings were popular and selling.

As a younger man, Hilton had come to know the Mojave Desert like no one else. His desert gem shop and art gallery was the scene of some of his art lessons with some of his closest desert friends, desert painters Maynard Dixon, Nicolai Fechin, Jimmy Swinnerton, and Clyde Forsyth.

As World War II began, Hilton's first hand knowledge lead to a reconoitering jeep expedition with General George Patton as the general was preparing to train troops for his Africa campaign. Later during the war in 1943, Hilton's humble gallery hosted his friend Howard Hughes who flew his plane from Los Angeles and landed on the highway out front, bringing fresh Maine lobster for Kathi, John's daughter who was enjoying her fourth birthday party.

At the time, Hilton was operating his own calcite mine. The calcite was of an optical grade and was used by MIT and Edwin Land (of Polaroid Land Camera fame) to make gun sites for anti aircraft weapons aboard American bombers. The sites made it much easier to target enemy fighters from shooting down our bombing crews. Although he could have become a wealthy man from the enterprise, Hilton refused to make money on the venture as he felt it was his way of doing his part for the war effort.

After the war, Hilton met the returning victorious General Dwight Eisenhower while showing his work at an outdoor art show in Palm Springs. Ike was an aspiring ameteur painter, and struck up an immediate friendship with Hilton. When Ike came to Palm Springs to play golf, he would go missing for hours on end. Only his most senior aids knew the President was at Hilton's house painting. In 1957, Hilton would present his painting Twentynine Palms Oasis which Eisenhower displayed in his Oval Office.

Below are four of Hilton's paintings currently on exhibit at our gallery.

Joshua Meador (1911-1965) was at the apex of his career in the 1950's.

As a young man during the 1920's, he was an track star in his native Columbus, Mississippi, and an honor student. His father's influence garnered young Josh an appointment to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, but the brave young artist had the courage to tell his father he did not want a military career, but wanted to be an artist. To his father's credit, Josh enrolled at the Art Institute in Chicago, and graduated cum laude into the midst of the Great Depression in 1935.

After a brief stint painting Post Offices for the WPA, Meador, submitted his portfolio to Walt Disney, an aspiring animation film maker in California. As a younger man, Walt Disney had wanted to attend the Art Institute.

Now enjoying some success in Hollywood, he was in a position to hire some of the best artists he could find, and among them, he hired Josh.

Josh loved his job at Disney. He enjoyed the collaborative environment working with the many artists assembled by Walt. Josh became director of of animation effects, and among contributions made by him were methods and techniques which gave fairy dust to Tinkerbell and the "Z" in Zoro. He worked on all the Disney classics produced by the studio for twenty years, including directing a portion of the groundbreaking animated feature, Fantasia.

During much of 1955, Josh was working on loan from Disney with MGM Studios, doing special animation effects for the ground breaking Science Fiction film, Forbidden Planet, a forerunner of Star Trek and Star Wars.

Above are four of Joshua Meador's paintings currently on exhibit at our gallery.

While maintiaining his home in Los Angeles, he often visited Bamff National Park and Lake Louise in southeastern Alberta and venturing north to Jaspar National Park. For Andreas, the Canadian Rockies were reminiscent of the Austrian Alps where he painted earlier in his career.

Andreas has been exhibited at the Orange County Museum, and his distinctive style has garnered a loyal group of collectors.

Sources: Photos and biographical information from Andreas Leipold of Germany, the artist's great-grandson, and Artists in California 1786 - 1940, Edan Milton Hughes, 3d ed.