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Show Seem '77 CLASSIFIEDS FEATURES PAUL HARVEY WEEK'S TV GUIDE THURSDAY, FEB. 17, 1977 AM R FAVORITE PAINTING of Edith Haddock, the late artist's mother, is this untitled oil which hangs on the wall of her home in Paris, Idaho. "It pictures life to me," said Mrs. Haddock. "The cemetery, the church, the houses; I can read so much meaning in it. I look at it every day." UNTITLED WORK was a habit for Rex Haddock. "He was a great one for that," said his mother, Edith Haddock, of her son's failure to title his creations. "All he wanted to do was paint and stick them in the corner." She currently is occupied with digging some of the paintings out of those corners for the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, which is interested in exhibiting Haddock's fantasy art. ' IN PARIS IDAHO Arfffsf Coimjfuiired Fanimy From BY BILL WOODALL The story of Rex J. Haddock, a Paris, Idaho, native and reknowned fantasy artist, is the story of a man who achieved fame almost despite his own indifference to it. The tragedy of Haddock's story is that just as his name began to be acclaimed, he died of a heart attack. The date was February 16, 1976; he was fifty-tw- o years old. Throughout the 1960's and early 70's, Haddock's work appeared in exhibits all over the United States and around the world. By 1974 he finally was able financially to work full time at his art. FOR MANY awards and honors at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention held in Washington, D.C., and his work was in Melequally bourne, Australia, a year later. Also in 1975, he won first place awards at the North American Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. Those are a few of the many prizes he garnered, both as an abstract painter and as a realist. well-receiv- Haddock was born in Paris, Idaho, October 23, 1924, the son of Darwin and Edith Haddock. At age three he began doodling with pencil and paper and didn't stop until the heart attack stopped him. He wasn't only a painter, though. Far from it. He taught high school, toured Europe, became a lawyer through correspondence courses and with both his science oriented images which seem to be influenced diversely by the art and ideas of other cultures. He graduated from Fielding High School in 1943, then spent three years in the painting merely a hobby, "a way to relax." pi! , v "I never tried to sell art work or compete in art shows until I was married and moved to California. "I have to give credit to my wife. She started (in 1960) to take my work out and enter it in shows. Others in her family who lived in other parts of the state started doing the same thing," Haddock said. N-- Y Navy, during most of which he was in the Pacific-Asia- n theater. There he undoubtedly kept an eye upon the art and culture of the Orientals, and later integrated many of their concepts into his own art. In some of his more fanciful drawing these influences are especially evident. IN THE EARLY 50's he acqured B.A. and Master's degrees in history from Utah State University in Logan and began a long and distinguished career as an educat- From this small start he grew into a successful professional artist. Those relatives in California became agencies, and other avenues also were opened up. He maintained a continuous exhibit in an art gallery in Garden Grove, Calif., and shows held several in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and elsewhere, including one in the Carl Frye Gallery in Long Beach, Calif. or, teaching political science, history and art. He served briefly as an officer in the Air Force Reserves during the Korean War, then started his teaching at Drag-ertoUtah. He later taught four years at his alma mater, Fielding, then, with brief n, n DURING THE last ten years Af his life, Haddock earned a wide array of awards. In 1969 his entry was named best in the professional division from a field of several hundred works in competition at the Art Institute Schools of Minneapolis. The same year, a painting entitled, "Galilee" won the Best of Show at a Sidewalk Art Fair in Norwalk, Calif. In 1974 ho received several RAISED IN PARIS, the high mountains and crystal-clea- r streams of Idaho evidently created strong impressions on Haddock, because these images people marty of his paintings. The cattle ranchers, old home- steads and trout streams appear throughout his work, right alongside surrealist YEARS he had considered one-ma- fiction works and his more realistic ones, he successfully translated the world of his imagination into the reality of ours, leaving us all richer for his efforts. interruptions, at Whittier, Calif., where he moved in 1958, until 1974. In 1955 Haddock spent two months in Europe, visiting REX HADDOCK England, France, Monacco, Italy, San Marino, Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Holland, Scotland, and Ireland. He explored the museums and art galleries of those countries, was impressed especially by Westminster Abbey and by the small town of Bruges, Belgium, which was much the same as We it had been during the Middle Ages. the world in pictures as well in words. as The differences in cultural habits and the magnificence of the ancient Greek temples in Italy and of the Alps also moved him, as did the beauty of Ireland. He considered this, the last country on his tour, to be one of the beauty spots of Europe, and was particularly pleased, with the lakes region around Killarney. He also met Giordano while in Europe, whom he married in "Most of my science fiction paintings are relatively small, unframed drawings." He usually sold these at auctions, for $50 to $100 apiece. "My style of paintings lends itself to the fantasy type of subject matter. . . I create creatures you'd never see in this world, distortions of people and animals. . . things you'd never see anyplace else." Jos-epho- 1959. IN THE EARLY 60's, besides teaching school and keeping up on his artistic endeavors, Haddock took law school correspondence courses, and finally took and passed the California Bar exam in June of 1965. He worked for a time in Los Angeles County as a public defender but soon returned to teaching. It was not until 1974 that he quit teaching to devote more time and energy to his painting and writing. And because he specialized in a field into which most artists do not delve, he found it relatively easy to establish a following and to sell his works to collectors. But, there were drawbacks. "THE APPEAL OF my work is not too broad. My work is a little too weird for popular tastes. Everyone doesn't understand it." Finally, after twenty years of teaching, he decided to retire so he could devote more time to his art. Haddock's artistry sprang from his vivid imagination as much as from his self-taug- ability to that imagination transcribe onto can- vas. He tried to create, a place "another world people can escape to, at least temporarily." He worked with oils, acrylics, brushes and an airbrush to cull from that imagination all manner of beautifully eerie landscapes, strange elfin creatures, ethereal monsters and other 'unknown things.' These creatures came alive on his canvases in a fantasy style which was no accident. "IT FEELS NATURAL," he once said. "I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction material and yes Hive to a great extent in my created world. "I want to create an imaginary world the same way J.R. R.Tolkien did, but I want to create this world visually. I want people to see ' "It was something I'd always wanted to do," he explained. "I was financially secure and when I began having substantial success as an artist the time seemed propitious." So Rex Haddock worked mornings on his writing and afternoons on his art throughout the last two years of his life. Those works often were described as "ethereal," "poetic," and "mystical." But regardless of the labels applied, the paintings spoke well for themselves. Whether he was dealing with a scene frdm the American West, or an Oriental "Coast; whether an Alpine vista or a road into the back country; whether they were creatures strictly from his imagination or real people, Rex Haddock made them all real and bcautful and full of life, and he enriched our lives in the process. |