Roy McLendon

Roy McLendon is one of Florida artists that are known as Highwaymen. The group was formed by talented young African-American artists in 1950s, who specialized in painting native Florida landscapes. Having no access to art galleries and shows, Highwaymen sold their paintings from the backs of their cars and trucks – hence, the name Highwaymen. It's not much known about Roy McLendon's private life; he is still painting, so you can find both old and new styles of Roy McLendon Paintings. He also has a son, Roy McLendon Junior, who was following the steps of his father and is an artist as well, painting Florida landscapes as his father does.

Roy McLendon was more experimental in his choice of subject matter for his paintings than many other Highwaymen. He often painted portraits and still life, and many of Roy McLendon paintings are landscapes of night scenes. In this way he was able to develop his art without succumbing to the standard Highwaymen conventions. McLendon appeared eager to develop his skill and a personal style, and continued to paint long after many of the Highwaymen had moved on. You can notice in Roy McLendon paintings that he was quite fascinated by the play of light on various textures, especially water, and this interplay is characteristic of his personal style. It is not uncommon to see a ray of light hitting various textures and changing them as it passes in a McLendon.

You can usually identify Roy McLendon paintings by his signature; he used a palette knife to sign his paintings, by scratching "R. A. McLendon" into the wet paint. Older Roy McLendon paintings were made exclusively on upson board, but the artist’s more modern paintings are on stretched canvas.