About the Artist

Keith Crown was born in Keokuk, Iowa and grew up in Gary, Indiana. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1936–40. Between 1940 and 1941, Crown was an instructor of art at Luther College before being inducted into the Army. During World War II, he was an Infantry Artist and Staff Sergeant as well as a field correspondent providing combat-area illustrations for Yank magazine . He was awarded a Bronze Star during the War.

After the War he returned to the Art Institute of Chicago, earning a bachelor's degree in fine art in 1946 and joining the faculty at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as an instructor of art later that year. He taught there until 1983.

In 1947, he had his first one-man show at the M.H. deYoung Museum in San Francisco.  He was awarded a sabbatical leave in 1956 when he visited Taos, New Mexico, for four months.  A second sabbatical leave occurred in 1964 when he spent time as a Visiting Professor of Painting at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Through an act of vandalism in 1965, Crown lost over one hundred paintings.

He continued working, becoming a Visiting Professor of Painting at the University of Calgary at Alberta, Canada, during the summer months. The pattern of doing visiting professorships during summers continued with positions at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Portland State University, the University of Illinois and the University of Missouri, Columbia. Crown also gave numerous lecture-demonstrations and workshops and was an artist in residence at several colleges including Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

He also spent summers and sabbaticals painting in Massachusetts and as far away as England and the Netherlands.

Crown spent considerable time painting and writing while working in Taos, New Mexico, and was an active participant in the Taos art scene. He built an adobe house on 7 acres in Talpa, a town near Taos, where he spent his summers from 1972 until 1998. Although he continued traveling widely, he stayed in Taos part of each year.

Crown preferred to paint his watercolors outdoors rather than in a studio. Although he experimented with acrylics, oils and other mediums, he concentrated on watercolors throughout his life. He especially enjoyed painting around Taos, New Mexico, in desert terrain. Crown used various means to apply his paint which is often colorful, including brushes, razor knives, sponges, a water can, a spray bottle, string and nails. He also used an air-brush which he described as providing a "distinguished character" to his paintings. He typically sketched before beginning a painting. Former students have commented that he was known for his productivity, starting and finishing a painting the same day. He has signed different sides of his paintings so they could be hung in different ways.

In 1959 Crown served as president of the National Watercolor Society (NWS, formerly the California Watercolor Society) and was awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. In 2003 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Watercolor Honor Society. He was also one of the founding board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of Artist's Equity.

He retired from teaching in 1983 and moved to Columbia, Missouri with his wife. He died on January 31, 2010, and is buried in Palos Verdes, California.

Crown’s paintings have appeared in more than 200 juried and solo exhibitions. His work is represented in many public and private museums and collections, including the Phillips Collection, Washington DC; Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University, Providence, RI; Ackland Museum, Chapel Hill, NC; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles; Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM; Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO; the Gene Crain Collection of California Watercolors, Laguna Beach, CA; Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; Missouri Student Unions Public Arts Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; and others.


Biographical sources include: AskArt, Luther College