Ira Yeager

Ira Yeager was a bohemian painter whose adventurous life and wide travels shaped a celebrated postwar and contemporary body of work. Raised in Bellingham, Washington, he turned to art at an early age, drawing inspiration from Native American cultures encountered through his father’s sporting pursuits. Yeager studied in San Francisco under Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, developing an independent style before traveling extensively through Europe, North Africa, and the Americas. Living in places such as Florence, Corfu, Tangiers, Santa Fe, and New York, he painted landscapes, Native Americans, animals, flowers, and the vivid personalities he met along the way. Greece and Morocco proved especially transformative, introducing him to a vibrant expatriate and Beat-era circle. For nearly fifty years, Yeager’s work was widely exhibited in Europe, Santa Fe, and throughout Northern California.