Shannon Stirnweis Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1931 - d. 2019

The Artist Shannon Stirnweis


Born in Portland Oregon in 1931, his ambitions fixed on becoming an artist while in grade school. This interest, although sometimes detoured by sports and studies, continued through high school and a year at the University of Oregon. Winning the American Institute of Graphic Design Scholarship. He completed his education with five years at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

After graduation he served two years in the army as an illustrator in Germany. In his spare time he was able to paint more than thirty portraits of the officers and men which paid for a camera which allowed him to place third in an all army photography show.Most of his leave time was spent at European museums in a rare opportunity to study the works of the masters.

Discharged in the late fifties,he found making a living painting for the galleries was difficult,but the illustration market in the East was still quite healthy.In New York City he progressed from an agency sketch job to free lancing adventure pulps and children's books to slick magazines such as Argosy, Boy's Life,Time,Show,Outdoor Life and Field and Stream.He did covers for virtually all the New York paperback publishers and illustrated over thirty children's books.His advertising clients varied from pharmaceuticals,to industrials to movies to stamps.

After serving two years as President of the Society of Illustrators in New York City he followed the lead of many former illustrators and entered the field of gallery painting.

He and his wife Regina were married in 1958.They have three sons,Kevin,Kirk and Eric all are into the arts,Kirk is painting the historical West in New Hampshire.

He is represented in the permanent collections of the U.S. Dept.of the Interior, U.S. Air Force, U.S.Army Historical Museum. U.S.Coast Guard, Leaning Tree, Marriott, Grumbacher, Rumley, C.B.S., Burt Reynolds, California Federal Savings, University of Texas(El Paso), University of Wyoming, New Britain Museum and the Pipin Museum. He has participated in shows at the Hunterton Art Center, the New York Historical Society and the Smithsonian.

His biography appears in the" Illustrator in America 1880-1990", "Contemporary Western Artists", "200 Years of American Illustration", and Marquis, "Who's Who in America". Shannon currently resides in New Ipswich, New Hampshire where he finds inspiration everyday to keep painting.