Biography

Born in a log cabin in Canon City, Colorado, Robert Amick became an illustrator of Western subjects, painter, printmaker, commercial artist and teacher. He grew up in the Colorado cattle country during the 1880s amidst cowboys, Ute and Sioux Indians, homesteaders, and prospectors-"all the characters on the western stage " (Samuels). Amick earned a law degree from Yale University while also taking art courses. After practicing law for two years in Ohio, he became a full-time artist, taking private lessons and studying at the Art Students League. He did illustrations for "Harpers," "Scribner's," "The American," and other publications but was most comfortable with subjects from the life of his background. His western scenes of brilliantly colored landscapes with horses and riders became quite popular, and twelve of them were reproduced as prints for the public schools. He spent much of his career living near New York City in Greenwich, Connecticut where he was, according to a family member, the founder of the Art Society of Greenwich in 1927. Given the circumstances of his background, it is likely he was in Arizona before 1940, but that is not proven.