Rider, Arthur Grover (1886 – 1975)

Rider painted this view of workers’ living quarters at one of the many ranches in San Diego’s east county in 1930. It exhibits the saturated color and heavy impasto that are key to making his best work so popular.

Arthur Grover Rider was born on March 21, 1886, in Chicago, Illinois. He is most known for his vibrant paintings of fishing boats over seascapes with open sails. Rider attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for his early study. He painted for the Chicago Lyric Opera during his undergraduate years and then went to Europe. There, he painted for the London Opera at Covent Garden while he was a resident of London. Rider then continued his education at the George Petite Galleries in Paris, where he also held exhibitions at the Académies de la Grande-Chaumière and Colarossi. For nine summers total, Rider painted in Spain, where he also met Joaquin Sorolla, who had a big impact on his style. Together, they painted on the Valencian Beach, and Rider was a key member of the cortége at Sorolla’s death in 1923. Rider had his paintings exhibited in the Valencian court while in Spain. In the 1920s, Rider took trips to California, and in 1931, settled in Laguna Beach. He worked at MGM and Fox Studios as one of the top scenic artists for more than thirty years. He created paintings for the GGIE in 1939 and the Chicago Century of Progress Expo in 1933. He was a skilled painter of boats, flowers, landscapes, seascapes, animals, and people. He traveled to Taxco, Mexico, in his latter years, where he developed an interest in architecture, particularly that of churches and structures with red tile roofs. On January 25, 1975, Rider passed away in Pasadena.