Ogden Pleissner

Ogden Pleissner (1905-1983) was a highly regarded American painter whose atmospheric watercolors and oils of Western landscapes, sporting subjects, and wartime scenes secured him a substantial place within American painting of the twentieth century. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to musically inclined parents, Pleissner discovered his lifelong passion for art at the age of eleven, when a friend gave him a paintbox that opened up the visual world for him. As a child he spent several summers in Wyoming, where he sketched from life and developed the deep appreciation for the outdoors, for fishing, and for the Western landscape that would remain central subjects for the rest of his artistic life.

Pleissner pursued his formal training at the Art Students League of New York from 1922 to 1926, studying under Frank Vincent DuMond, one of the most respected American teachers of his era. Shortly after completing his studies he began teaching at Pratt Institute, launching an early parallel career as an educator alongside his own studio practice. Through the 1930s he worked primarily in oils and earned steady recognition for his paintings of the American West, along with his atmospheric scenes of the Canadian Maritimes and New England. In 1938 the National Academy of Design awarded him the Second Hallgarten Prize for his painting South Pass City (Wyoming Ghost Town), an important recognition that confirmed his growing reputation.

At the outset of the Second World War, Pleissner was commissioned as a captain in the United States Air Force and stationed in the Aleutian Islands as a war artist. The harsh, damp conditions of the region forced him to abandon oils in favor of watercolors, which dried more quickly and proved more practical under the difficult wartime circumstances. This forced technical change would transform his practice, and watercolor would remain a central medium for him for the rest of his life. In 1942 he accepted a commission from the United States Army as a war correspondent on inactive duty, employed by Life magazine, which brought his images of the war to a wide American audience. After the war he continued to travel through Europe and Wyoming, painting city scenes, landscapes, and the sporting subjects for which he became particularly beloved.

Pleissner also served as a director and trustee of the Tiffany Foundation, contributing to the professional support of American artists in an institutional capacity. He died in London in 1983. His paintings and watercolors are held in major American museum and private collections.