| Albert Ernest "Beanie" Backus was an American artist famous for his vivid Florida landscapes. Beanie was mostly self-taught, although he did enjoy two summer stints at the Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1922-23. At Parsons he learned the academic principles of symmetry and design that he had previously explored instinctually. Backus always earned his living through his artistic talent, first as a commercial artist painting signs, billboards and theater marquees, and later encouraged by Dorothy Binney Palmer, his first true patron, to pursue his landscape paintings as a full-time occupation. |
