Horace Day
Horace Day (1909-1984)
Artist Horace Day at Palisades Reservoir, Idaho
Unlike most of the other artists commissioned by the Bureau of Reclamation, Horace Day was
born abroad, in China in 1909 to missionary parents. He was self taught until he came to the
United States at age 18 and enrolled in the Art Students League. He studied with Boardman
Robinson, Kimon Nicholaides, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. Before the U.S. became involved in
WWII, he was the first director of the Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Georgia. Upon
America's entry into the war, Day prepared maps for the 86th division staff as well as painting
and sketching his impressions of war from the point of view of an enlisted soldier. Although he
painted during his tour of duty, he was not involved in the Armed Forces art program until after
the war, when he was assigned to the Army historical section. After the war, he was a professor
at Mary Baldwin College and director of the Saint-Memin gallery in Alexandria, Virginia. In
addition to the Bureau of Reclamation commission, he painted a mural in the Clinton, Texas U.S.
Post Office. Horace Day died in 1984.
Horace Day called himself a regional painter, interested in depicting the scenery of his
adopted South. The style he chose to portray the landscapes and people of the South was a brand
of Romantic Realism influenced by Claude Lorraine and Jacob van Ruysdael. He primarily
worked outside, as a plain air painter, using quick impressionistic brush strokes to record the
scene.
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