Miscellaneous Historical Photographs

The artist: Frederick Penney (1900 - 1988) Born in Fullerton, Nebraska, Frederick Penney became a landscape painter who spent much of the last 30 years of his career painting desert scenes of the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1924, having traveled as a youth with the circus in order to capture in paint aspects of this activity. He studied at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Art Students League in New York. During the 1930s, he was active in the art world of Los Angeles and had a design center business. However, at the beginning of World War II until 1957, he returned to Chicago where he worked in the factory of his father and then returned to California, settling in Palm Springs. He was a member of the Desert Art Center in Palm Springs, the Laguna Beach Art Association, and the California Watercolor Society. Penney expressed pride in his American ancestry which goes back to pre-Washington days. His mother was a Cushing of Boston, and it was Chief Justice Cushing who swore in George Washington as President of the United States. Source: TREASURY OF LIVING ART, Desert Art Center, Palm Springs, CA 1970