Frank Harmon Myers, Impressionist Painter and Arts Educator(Cleves, Ohio 1899 – 1956 Pacific Grove, California) Ohio-born and Cincinnati-raised Frank Harmon Myers was interested in art at an early age. Prior to his teenage years, he illustrated a series of full-body portraits of Native Americans and some landscapes, as well as artwork with holiday themes. Myers began his formal art training in 1917 at the Cincinnati Art Academy under Frank Duveneck (1848-1919) and John Ellsworth Weis (1892-1962). This was followed by studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as a pupil of landscape painters Daniel Garber and Joseph Thurman Pearson Jr., as well as early abstract artist who bridged the styles between Impressionism and Modernism, Hugh Henry “Breckie” Breckenridge (1870-1937). In 1923 Myers traveled to France where he enrolled at L’Académie Americaine des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of historical / allegorical painter Auguste Francoise-Marie Gorguet and Neoclassic painter Jean Despujols (1886-1965). He furthered his studies at the School of Fine Arts at Fontainebleau, France. Following this education, he taught at the Cincinnati Art Academy, produced commissioned portraits, and held studio classes at the University of Cincinnati between 1921 and 1940. Myers’ earliest paintings evidenced a strong sense of Realism handled in bold and expressive brush strokes. He also produced brightly-colored works revealing his admiration of French Impressionism. By the late 1920s Myers created a number of remarkably-advanced paintings in an analytical style bordering on abstraction. In 1925 Frank Myers married Ella Price, a young school teacher. They spent their honeymoon in Europe, based in Paris and making travels throughout Spain. The following year they made an extended trip west, visiting Colorado and New Mexico (where they spent time with Joseph Henry Sharp, the “father of the Taos Art Colony”), as well as California, where Myers first visited the Monterey Peninsula. There, this Midwesterner became captivated by the beauty of the California coast and first painted seascapes of the Pacific Ocean. After painting in Provincetown, Massachusetts the following summer, followed by Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1931, Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1932 and 1933—where he became an active member of the Taos Artist Colony—and Rockport, Maine in 1937 to paint harbor scenes, his health began to falter and for no apparent reason, he experienced bouts of depression. In 1940 he took what was meant to be a year’s leave of absence and moved with Ella to Monterey. Compelled by his keen interest to paint the ocean, Myers and his wife decided to make Pacific Grove their home. He built a home/studio on Crest Avenue where he lived for the rest of his life. From 1940 onward Myers left behind his decades-long urban scenes, still lifes, portraits, animals, ranches, farms, villages, and landscapes, and, with rare exceptions such as portrait commissions, he painted only the ocean. Myers’ seascapes were often favorably compared to the works of marine painter Frederick Judd Waugh (1861-1940). Jurying into the Carmel Art Association, he often painted alongside Armin Hansen (1886-1957) and Donald Teague (1897-1991). Together these three painters were a vital force in defining the Monterey Peninsula art community. Unfortunately, after several years of recurring health problems, Frank Myers died of a heart attack in San Francisco on March 7, 1956. Posthumously, he was honored with the City and County of San Francisco Award. Myers paintings are in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art in Washington D. C., Museum of New Mexico, University of Cincinnati, San Diego Museum of Art, Canton Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, San Jose State University, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey County Courthouse, and The Irvine Museum. He was distinguished by many 1st prize awards and exhibited widely, including at the Salon in Paris, Cincinnati Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art, Harlow Galleries in New York City, St. Louis City Museum, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Ohio State Fair, Maxwell Gallery in San Francisco, California State Fair in 1952, Oakland Art Gallery in 1953, Carmel Museum in 1968 through 1972, and the De Young Museum, which paid tribute to Frank Myers with a Memorial Exhibition in 1958. Besides Carmel Art Association, Myers was a member of the Cincinnati Art Club, MacDowell Society, Society of Independent Artists, and Southwest Art. He is listed in over ten reference books on American artists of the 20th century.