Phil Dike - The Innovator -

Let's begin with watercolorist Phil Dike:  Classically trained, he later made innovative journeys into abstraction and experimentation that is rarely seen.  

Here is his biography:

Phil Dike was born in 1906 in Redlands, California.  He studied art at The Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, The Art Students League in New York,  and The American Academy in France.  He was a member of various prestigious art groups, i.e: The American Watercolor Society, The National Academy of Design, The California Watercolor Society, and The Philadelphia Watercolor Club.  He won a Chouinard Art Institute scholarship in 1923.  He also studied with George Bridgman, George Luks, and Frank Vincent DuMond in New York City.  He ended up teaching at Chouinard on his return in 1929.  He was one of the forerunners of "The California Style" of painting in watercolor. 

He connected with Walt Disney in 1935, where he taught color theory while working on "Snow White", Fantasia, and The Three Caballeros.  He became president of The California Watercolor Society in 1938.  Around 1946 Dike left Disney Studios and returned to painting full time and teaching art.   He joined forces with watercolorist Rex Brandt and together they started the Brandt-Dike Summer School of Painting, which became very successful.  In the off/summer months he taught at Chouinard.  

1950s-1960s: Phil became a professor of art at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School in Clairmont, California.  He was well loved as a teacher and was considered a major innovator in the development of The California Watercolor movement.   He passed in 1990.  

Here is one of my favorite paintings of his titled "Wash Day":

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