Artist, John Paul Strain: The Last Man Standing

Renowned for his ability to create detail in his Civil War renderings, artist John Paul Strain has reached the summit of his field and stands alone now in his own shadow.

There’s an irony with artist John Paul Strain that begins with his name. A patron of Civil War art once asked if a certain young painter of scenes depicting Confederate legends Forrest, Jackson, and Lee was, in fact, American. “John Paul Strain?” he asked. “Sounds foreign. Is he from the United States?” Quite.

Artist John Paul Strain on hallowed ground, standing by the monument to the 20th Maine volunteers on Little Round Top. Sonny Fulks.

Reared in Redlands, California, he’s been nearly everywhere in America since settling in Texas more than a quarter century ago to begin his quest to become a successful illustrator of the western and Civil War genre. If the name throws you, or sounds pretentious, rest assured. Any formality with Strain is offset by the culture of his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, where he and his wife Nancy have raised a family of four in the comfort of lone star pace and personality. One of the art market’s most successful and popular painters since 1991, his background is decidedly different from contemporaries like Don Troiani, Mort Kunstler, and Dale Gallon.

Another irony, “My father actually wanted me to be a baseball player,” said Strain during a recent appearance in Gettysburg.¹ “I was his baseball hobby in high school. I actually counted my equipment in my senior year of high school and I had over a hundred bats, a pitching machine with 400 baseballs, thirty pairs of cleats and twenty-five gloves. I went to Florida State with the promise of a full ride scholarship in 1975, but there was a coaching change made when I got there and the new coach had no idea of what the former coach had promised me. There was no scholarship. So I went back home to California to play shortstop for the University of Redlands and the NCAA declared me ineligible because of my transfer for that year and the following year. So that pretty much ended my designs on a baseball career. I miss it every day. My cousin Joe Strain actually did play in the major leagues for the better part of three years with the Giants and the Cubs.”

But his genesis with becoming an artist was another, separate matter, and one with more irony. “I was a baseball player at Redlands High School, one of the better players in the state of California as a senior, and signed up for an art class my senior year in high school because I needed one more credit. Someone told me that if I took Mr. Lowry’s art class and did the work it was an easy A,” smiles Strain. “So I enrolled and Mr. Lowry knew that I was a jock. He told me ‘Alright Jack, if you work the whole period and don’t cause trouble I’ll give you an A. Just don’t cause any trouble.’ So I sat in the back with the best artist in the class and I decided to do a 24” x 36” painting that was pretty involved. Mr. Lowry would come by every day, take a look at it, but never said anything. He just looked at it and left.

Strain applies some accent touches to a canvas giclee image during Remembrance Weekend in Gettysburg. Sonny Fulks.

“At the end of the semester I had finished the painting and he came to me and said, ‘I really like your painting and don’t want to see it leave. Will you sell it to me? Will you take 150 dollars for it?’ So here I am mowing lawns for five dollars and that was pretty impressionable. So I did another painting for the next semester and had an opportunity to meet artist Doug Van Howd. Howd was making his living painting wildlife at the time...