“DAWN’S FIRST LIGHT”

“Dawn’s First Light”

Reproduction of A. E. “Beanie” Backus

A.E. “Beanie” Backus was mostly self-taught, although he did enjoy two summer stints at the Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1924-25. At Parsons he learned the academic principles of symmetry and design that he had previously explored instinctually. Backus always earned his living through his artistic talent, first as a commercial artist painting signs, billboards and theater marquees, and later encouraged by Dorothy Binney Palmer, his first true patron, to pursue his landscape paintings as a full-time occupation. He painted vivid Florida landscapes, 1950’s  images of the ubiquitous hibiscus and other tropical flowers, the beautiful Florida sunset, beach and river scenes and the spectacular vistas of the Everglades.

Backus is credited with teaching art to a wide range of students. Backus’s proteges are referred to as “the Indian River School” of artists. One student, Alfred Hair, was the driving force  behind an allied group of African-American artists called the Highwaymen.

Backus, who was, during his young adulthood, a confirmed bachelor married a woman twenty years his junior in 1951. His wife, Patsy (1926–1955) died at the age of 29 after having open heart surgery.[4] They never had any children together, but “Beanie” had many other “children”. There were at least 20 kids over the years that he would mentor and help put through college that spent time at his home after school and on weekends that were known as “Backus Brats”. Outside of the “Brats”, There were still a few hundred more children over his years as an artist and philanthropist that he would have a strong influence upon during his lifetime.

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