Elmer L. Boone, a painter of southwestern landscapes and Mexican subjects in Texas, Arizona and Mexico, was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1883. From 1925, he painted primarily in New Mexico and Arizona. The artist died in El Paso, Texas in 1952, after returning from a painting trip to Arizona's Oak Creek Canyon, in Sedona. He was buried in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Boone studied in Chicago, Illinois, at the Smith School of Art, and the Art Institute. He eventually moved to El Paso in 1927 because of poor health, after a period painting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and with famed cowboy artist Charles M. Russell in Montana. It is possible he had painting instruction from Russell.
In El Paso, Boone was a founder of the art exhibition that was part of the annual Sun Carnival there. He earned his living by commercial art from his studio in the Electric Company Building.
Boone was a member of the Far Southwest Artists Association, in El Paso, as well as the El Paso Artists Association, with whom he frequently exhibited. His work may be found in the collections of the Montana Historical Society, Helena, and Torch Energy Advisors, Houston, Texas.
Posthumous exhibitions include the Charles M. Russell Gallery, Helena, Montana; "McKee Collection of Paintings," El Paso Museum of Art, 1968; "Early El Paso Artists," El Paso Centennial Museum, 1981; "Images of Texas, 1880-1950," Waco Art Center, 1994.
Sources include:
John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists
Doris Dawdy, Artists of the American West, Vol. III
Due to failing health, he settled in El Paso, Texas in 1927 and operated a commercial art studio.
