George McMahan is a realist painter of Western and Wildlife subjects in Oils. He was a founding member of Western Artists of America, a member of the Society of Western Artists and a member of American Artists International.

He was born June 1, 1926, in a mining shack near Roundup, Montana, the son of Bert and Carrie McMahan. Two years later he moved with his family to Klamath Falls, where his father worked at the Shaw Bertram Lumber Co. McMahan left high school to enlist in the Army Air Corps during World War II and served in the Army Airways Communications Squadron until he was discharged in 1946.

Back in Klamath Falls, an accident changed his life. While working at a downtown lumber mill, the then 21-year-old used his coffee breaks to scurry from the mill to a neighboring restaurant for a quick milkshake. One day, hurrying back to work, he ran into an oncoming car, was tossed in the air and landed on his head with a broken neck. I became an artist by selection, McMahan said in a 2010 interview. I said, What can I do with a broken neck? It forced me into art, and I am very fortunate.

He Graduated at the Art Center in Los Angeles with a BPA, and was accepted into the Society of Western Artists in 1953. He spent fifteen years in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose learning and honing his skills, originally as a medical illustrator, later as a painter. While in San Francisco he met and, on Nov. 11, 1959, married Helen Beaver. Their son, Rick, was born in 1963.

While living in San Jose, he made weekend trips to San Francisco as part of a small group of artists who sold paintings on Fisherman’s Wharf. In the book, G.E. McMahan: The Man and His Art, by Zelda Shulley, he termed the time a training period for me. I really learned how to put a picture together. For the next ten years he produced hundreds of paintings at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. We had the privilege of hanging on the chicken wire around the Standard Oil tank. He was making money, learning the business of art, and saving for his next move.

He returned to Klamath Falls in 1969. Within months he owned the Pioneer Gallery, where he taught weekly painting classes, helping aspiring artists develop and refine their skills. I taught because I wanted to carry it on. The mechanics of a painting is a learned thing, he explained. The rest is up to you. Whether you are an artist or not is up to you. He bought a one quarter block, two story commercial building and turned the up stairs into living quarters and studio. Down stairs he opened a teaching studio and gallery. He began mentoring and teaching other students in 1971 and continued until 1985 when the two story, uptown building that both is studio, gallery, and home burned to the ground.

George and Helen (his wife) escaped with a few paintings but most everything else was lost in the fire. The fire had started in a dumpster in the alley behind the buildings and had spread to a drycleaners next door. When the drycleaners was fully engulfed, the fire burned through into the McMahan's building.

McMahan said he learned about selling, something he did not learn in art school. If you are going to be an artist, you are going to have to sell them, otherwise you are not a practicing professional artist, he told Shulley. I think that is the difference between being a professional and an amateur. One makes a living at it, the other does not. It has nothing to do with how well you paint.

McMahan painted landscapes and wildlife, including Pelicans at Tule Lake, California, which won Best of Show at a San Francisco Bay area competition and was featured in Ducks Unlimited magazine. Known for his highly detailed, realistic representational paintings, he was selected to paint a portrait of then-Oregon Gov. Robert Bob Straub in 1977.

Along with teaching generations of Klamath Basin painters, McMahan became a highly skilled sculptor and jeweler. In recent years, health issues caused McMahan to stop teaching. He continued painting, but shifted to impressionistic and abstracts.

How many paintings have I done? Oh, good lord, thousands of them. There is no counting. When you get to be my age you have done so much stuff, McMahan said laughingly during the 2010 interview. I have been a good painter for a long time.

Source:
Herald and News
Klamath Falls, Oregon