Ogden Pleissner

Ogden M. Pleissner (1905-1983) was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father was very interested in the arts, especially music and his mother was an accomplished violinist who had studied in Germany. At age 16, Pleissner was sent to a summer camp in Dubois, Wyoming. He spent two summers at with camp with a group of 15 or 20 other boys. A third summer was spent on a dude ranch where Pleissner did much drawing and sketching. These first experiences in the American West were to influence Pleissner’s career indelibly and led to his lifelong interest in hunting, fishing and the outdoors. Pleissner had some instruction in art while at the Brooklyn Friends School. In 1922, Pleissner attended the Art Students League in New York for four years. After he graduated, he made a number of drawings and illustrations of cowboys and Indians and took them around to “Scribners” and other magazines, he was turned down everywhere.He was an artist of enormous range, talent and energy and was equally at home in New York City, rural Vermont or fishing for salmon on the Grand Casapedia. His art is firmly rooted in the nineteenth-century classical tradition of Eakins and Homer. He was a superb draughtsman, and his painting shows an obsession with exact composition, perfect perspective and the realistic depiction of human anatomy and activity. Pleissner was a singularly gifted artist of the outdoors and of those sports that are the occupation of gentlemen. He had a genius for capturing the excitement of sport, whether it was grouse shooting in Scotland, duck hunting on the Chesapeake or salmon fishing on the Miramichi. His technique and use of color are unsurpassed. His works are greatly admired by both art collectors and hunting and fishing enthusiasts.