Ivan Messenger (1895 - 1983)

Corner of Living Room - Artichoke Blossoms in Old English Pitcher, c. 1940s, oil on Masonite, signed lower left, 28 x 24 inches, artist's name and address and title verso, remnant of exhibition label verso

$3750

Ivan Messenger was a California painter and printmaker. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Messenger was among the most significant artists working in 20^th century San Diego and Palm Springs. Before pursuing a full-time art career, Messenger earned a BA and MA in romance languages from Stanford University, where he also served as a professor in addition to teaching at the University of Texas.

Around 1925, he relocated to San Diego and began to paint, make prints, and teach art at San Diego State University and at Balboa Park’s Fine Art Gallery. His first solo exhibition in Southern California was in 1926, followed by a one-man show of twenty-one paintings at the Stanford University Art Gallery in 1927. Concerning this exhibition, the art critic for The San Francisco Examiner, commented, “The colors are clear and brilliant in most all of the pictures, giving the whole display a cheerful effect.”

In 1929, Messenger married Evelyn Wright, daughter of California senator Leroy A. Wright. The couple honeymooned in the New Mexico and Arizona, where Messenger painted a series of works depicting pueblo life for which he became well known in Southern California. He exhibited his pueblo works at a one man show at San Diego’s Little Gallery in 1929, when he was heralded as a “talented young artist.” In the early 1930s, Messenger also showed his southwest scenes at Bullock’s art gallery in Los Angeles, the Oakland Art Gallery, the Laguna Beach Art Gallery, and the California State Fair.

From 1930 through 1932, Messenger lived in Palm Springs, where he opened a private art school together with the sculptor, Atanis Katchamakoff, one of the first professional instructional studios in the small desert community. His work was included in a group exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1931. By the mid-1930s, after moving back to San Diego and La Jolla, Messenger added American Scene etchings of San Diego to his oeuvre. By 1935, he became a frequent art critic for The San Diego Sun, one of the city’s daily newspapers. Messenger was a core member of the San Diego arts community and frequently exhibited at locations throughout Southern California, together with Belle Baranceanu, Everett Gee Jackson, Charles Reiffel, and Donal Hord. He often won prizes, including at the 1935 Laguna Beach Art Association exhibition, and sometimes served on the prize juries for shows in the area, including at the San Diego County Fair, the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, and the San Diego Art Guild. He showed at the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935.

Aided by his background in Spanish, Messenger painted in Mexico, Panama, and Columbia, and exhibited these works throughout 1936. In 1937, he completed a large satirical work titled WPA which was entered in the Southern California Annual at the San Diego Fine Art Gallery. At the following year’s Annual, Messenger won an Honorable Mention for his painting It All Comes Out in the Wash. Throughout the 1930s, Messenger returned to Palm Springs to paint and occasionally to offer Spanish language classes. His work was included in the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. During the early 1940s, likely around the time he completed Corner of Living Room - Artichoke Blossoms in Old English Pitcher, Messenger participated in National Arts Week in Escondido, where he won third place in 1941 for a portrait titled Don Miguel. In 1942, he was honored with a solo exhibition at Los Angeles’ Frances Webb Galleries, about which, the art critic for the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News wrote, “Talent, ideas and technique combine to put sparkle in a one man show [by Messenger].” In 1944, he was again honored with a prize at the Laguna Beach Art Association. In 1947, he served as President of the San Diego Art Guild and had a solo exhibition at Los Angeles’ Cowie’s Gallery at the Biltmore Hotel. A second solo exhibition at the same venue followed in 1956. Kistler Gallery in Pasadena hosted a one-man exhibition of his prints in 1949. Messenger served as Assistant Director of the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery in the early 1950s.

In 1969, Messenger returned to the Palm Springs area, living in Rancho Mirage. The College of the Desert honored Messenger with a solo exhibition in 1974, with many non-objective works from the prior two decades. In connection with the show, Everett Gee Jackson described Messenger as “the most esthetically mature artist of this region” and Reginal Poland, former Director of the San Diego Art Gallery noted, “his art has a refreshing, striking spirit. It is never banal. Often it has a happy sense of humor. And it is always his own, quite original in concept and manner of expression.” Another former Director of the Gallery, Warren Beach, added, “There is nothing pompous or flashy about either Ivan or his work. In this sense it is very unlike California’s super-parade and movie image. Rather, here we find the skillful work of an artist who loves the little with the big and shows us each with a flair for description and suggestion which is most endearing.” Five years later in 1979, the Palm Springs Desert Museum hosted a retrospective of Messenger’s work spanning sixty years of his artistic output, titled Looking Backward and Inward. 

Outside of California, Messenger won awards from exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum and the Rochester Museum (New York). He was a member of the Berkley League of Fine Arts, La Jolla Art Club, Laguna Beach Art Association, California Watercolor Society, and the San Diego Art Guild. His works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, and the San Diego Art Museum. In recent years, his paintings have been included in exhibitions in California as part of the collection of Bram and Sandy Dykstra. Messenger is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.