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Roy DeForest   Page 1 of 2

Roy DeForest
West Coast Artist Roy DeForest has long worked with the theme of rambling visual storytelling about journeys to fantastic places where inhabitants and travelers include adept, grinning canines with glowing, bas-relief eyes.

History
[[image: black and white image of Roy]]
DeForest was born on 11 February 1930 in North Platte, Nebraska and grew up on a farm. After living in Yakima, Washington, he came to California in 1950 to study at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), where his teachers included Hassel Smith, Elmer Bischoff and David Park. He went on the study at San Francisco State College and in the late 50s began to teach. In the 60s he participated in the "Funk" art movement while his painting evolved to vibrantly patterned, fanciful landscapes crowded with animal and human figures.

DeForest's art has been exhibited since his student days. He has had more than three dozen one-man exhibitions including a major retrospective that opened in 1974 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveled to Fort Worth, Texas and to the Whitney Museum in New York. See Below for collections.