Meadowlark Gallery: The Artist Biographies

Alonzo Megargee (1883-1960)
Alonzo Megargee was probably born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1883 or 1891 and he died in Cottonwood, Arizona in 1960. Lon Megargee left Philadelphia at the age of thirteen for Arizona where he worked as an exhibition roper in a Wild West show, a bronc buster, a fireman, a poker dealer, a police captain, and a rancher. Although he had not previously painted, he obtained a commission for $7,000.00 from the first Governor of Arizona about 1911 for official paintings for the capitol building. Megargee studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League of New York, the Pratt Institute Art School in Brooklyn, and the Cooper Union Art School. He began exhibiting at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1936. He became best known for his illustrations for ad for the Arizona Brewing Company featuring humorous aspects of cowboy life. After his death, The Saturday Evening Post published a double page reproduction of Megargee's "Cowboy's Dream."
View high resolution images of works by Alonzo Megargee when available.