Virtual Art Tour

John DeMott, American, born 1954

Freedom on the Run

Born the middle child of eight, John DeMott was raised on a horse ranch in Southern California, where he preferred to draw rather than do his school assignments. Yet, he has never done anything in a small way. In high school he formed a gift manufacturing company using his metal shop class sculptures as his main product. This business took off right away, today doing over $2 million a year in business. However, in 1977, He decided to sell the business in order to devote his full time to painting.

Today, he lives with his family on The DeMott Farm, located on the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies. His paintings are preceded with research, studying, collecting artifacts and recreating scenes in order to create the mood each requires. If he cannot find the correct artifacts for his paintings, DeMott and his wife will often make them.

His subject matter includes wildlife, still life, mountain men, pioneers, prairie children, native Americans and old-time cowboys. “To experience a John DeMott painting is to truly experience a part of the great American frontier,” according to the National Museum of Wildlife Art 1999 Western Vision Miniature Show and Sale Catalogue.

“An outdoorsman and student of western American history, DeMott transcends the cliché of the western artist. It is DeMott’s gift that he can make the viewer keenly aware of a sense of time and place for an era that is long gone. As a student of American history.” DeMott said, “Frontier art has been an important part of my life and I am proud to be involved in the preservation of our great heritage.”