MC INTOSH, P.R.–GAINESVILLE

P.R. McIntosh, oil on board, 17 by 23 inches. Signed lower right.

P. R. (Pleasant Ray) McIntosh grew up on a farm in southern Indiana, where at the age of twelve, he began to draw and sculpt. From that time on his life revolved around art. After service with the U. S. Army in Europe during World War I McIntosh enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. He taught at Ohio State University from 1923 to 1926; was director of the Peoria Art Institute, 1926 to 1932; and director of the Art School at Bradley University from 1932 to 1949. After World War II McIntosh headed the American University of France art faculty in Biarritz, France.

P.R. McIntosh, Ode to the Egrets, oil on canvas, 39 by 55.5 inches. Signed lower right, McIntosh.

In 1949 McIntosh joined the art faculty at the University of Florida. For the next twenty years McIntosh painted the American West, in Mexico, old seaport towns in Florida, and in his large studio on Biven’s Arm Lake, in Gainesville. McIntosh’s home was a bird sanctuary, and a source of ever-changing views of Florida clouds, moss draped live oak, water, and wildlife. *

1949. The Gainesville Sun, February 26, 1950, reviewed Professor McIntosh’s work, “McIntosh’s painting shows vigor and daring. He uses bright strong color. His composition is vital. He handles symbolic subject matter and landscape with vitality. Mr. McIntosh seems to be an artist for whom painting is not a static reproduction of a world agreeable to look at, but the plastic expression of thought and feeling. For this reason, he often engages a certain symbolism.”

P.R. McIntosh, Deliverance, oil on canvas 40 by 56 inches. Signed lower right.

P.R. McIntosh, Boat at Tarpon, oil on canvas, 24.75 by 29.75 inches. Signed lower left and dated, 52.

1949. In 1952 McIntosh was working as an assistant to Stuart Purser at the first summer art school held by the University of Florida in Tarpon Springs. In 1955 he was honored with inclusion in the Ringling Museum of Arts, exhibit, Fifty Florida Painters. McIntosh retired from the University in 1968. In 1973 the Gainesville Sun headlined about McIntosh, “After 63 Years, He Still Aspires to be a Painter.” Quoting him, “You have to seduce the eye before you can appeal to the spectator.”

P.R. McIntosh, oil on board, 15.5 by 20 inches. 

Born: 1897, New Salisbury, Indiana. Died: 1985, Gainesville. Education: Art Institute of Chicago, BFA, MFA; The University of Chicago; Bradley Polytechnic Institute; Tiffany Foundation Scholarship. Membership: Gainesville Association of Fine Arts; Florida Artist Group; Society of The Four Arts; Florida Federation of Art; American Association of University Professors; Midwest Art Conference. Exhibits: Galerie Jean Dufresne, one man show, Paris; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, Jamboree, Recreation Center, January 1951; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, February 1952; Florida Artist Group, Ft. Harrison Hotel, Clearwater, March 1952; Florida Gulf Coast Art Center, Clearwater, University of Florida Faculty Exhibit, October 1952; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, April 1953; University of Florida, summer art school faculty, Hotel Villa Plumosa, Tarpon Springs, June 15 to July 15, 1953; St. Petersburg Art League, at Sprague Art School, September 1953; University of Florida, 1953, Tall Women of Tehuantepec; University of Florida, Student Service Center Gallery, November 2, 1953, one man show, oils; Florida Federation of Art Annual, November 1954, Martha Thompson Award; Ringling Museum of Art, 1955, Fifty Florida Painters, oil, Tall Women of Tehuantepec; Society of The Four Arts Annual Exhibition, December 1955; Gainesville Association of Fine Arts, Jamboree, March 1956; Society of The Four Arts, Contemporary American Paintings, December 1956, watercolor, Church at Oaxaca; Tampa Art Institute, University of Florida faculty exhibit, paintings, prints, sculpture, October 1957; Florida Artist Group, annual exhibit and symposium, Morse Gallery, Rollins College, Winter Park, May 1957, Tropical; Florida Federation of Art, 32^nd Annual Exhibition, November 13-28, 1958, Daytona Beach, watercolor, St. Augustine; Society of The Four Arts, 22^nd Annual, Contemporary American Paintings, December 1960, polymer, Figure Composition; Florida State Fair, Tampa, exhibited between, 1956-1962; Miami Beach Art Center, 2100 Collins Avenue, April 1963, one man show;  Florida Artist Group, 14^th Annual Exhibition, 1963-1964 at Tampa Art Institute, polymer, Composition No. 10.; New York World’s Fair, Florida Pavilion, 1965, The Dawn; Stetson University Art Gallery, September 1966, one-man exhibit of 40 acrylic paintings; College Park Sidewalk Art Festival, Winter Park, April 1977, 1^st prize, oil, Red Trees.

P.R. McIntosh, The Dunes, oil on canvas, 15.5 by 20 inches. Signed and titled verso. 

1949. *From Jean McIntosh Hebb, daughter of P. R. McIntosh.