Arnold Friberg

An illustrator and western painter, Arnold Friberg was born in Winnetka, Illinois. In 1916, he moved to Arizona with his family, and his future career took its first turn when he was ten and had a correspondence course in cartooning and advice from Fred Smith, cartoonist for The Arizona Republican. At age 17, he went to Chicago, and from there received the commission for a calendar art series on the Northwest Mounted Police.

In 1971, he became a painter of western subjects. Of this subject matter and style, he said: “Most of the best American painters did at least some illustrative work. Edwin Abbey, Winslow Homer, John Sloan, Frederic Remington, for example. They developed into painters but their training was in the illustrative world that makes you observe. For myself, I have no purpose but to tell a story.”