Walter C. Yeomans was an Illinois native and a student at the University of Illinois and the Art Institute of Chicago. Over his career, he worked as a printmaker, commercial artist, etcher and easel painter.

Yeomans studied various art techniques under well-respected artists. His etching skills were refined under the teachings of George Senseney and William Bicknell. Yeomans trained in landscape painting under American plein air painter Aldro Hibbard.

Yeomans’ portraiture work was greatly influenced by the teachings of Jerry Farnsworth, who served as the Carnegie Visiting Professor of Art and Artist in Residence at the University of Illinois from 1942-1943. Farnsworth stressed the fundamentals of art to his students, which he professed to be color, drawing and design. Farnsworth was an advocate of realism; he felt it was the artist’s job to visually communicate his feelings to the viewer (Dame, Lawrence. “Jerry Farnsworth Talks of Aims and Life. Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 3/25/1956.)

In addition to this oil portrait, the Saint Augustine Art Association possesses colored and dry point etchings of Yeomans’. In the 1930s, Yoemans and his painter wife, Jane, became winter residents of Saint Augustine, Florida. The Art Association was fortunate in that the Yeomans became two of its most ardent supporters.

© All images owned and copyright protected by the St. Augustine Art Association. Reproductions for educational use by written permission of the St. Augustine Art Association only. Please contact info@staaa.org or 904.824.2310 to place a request.