For more than five decades, John Padgett (United States, 1939- 2021), lived and breathed the dynamic ambience of Los Angeles, capturing its essence in works of art across various mediums. Alongside contemporaries Ed Ruscha and Billy Al Bengston, he challenged conventions of formalism, elevating realism and photorealism to an advanced art form. Padgett gave a voice to the beauty and narrative resonance of the odd, discarded, and overlooked in LA's rapidly transforming cityscape and expressed it through a unique and unmistakable lens.

John Padgett was born in Lyons, Kansas in the summer of 1939 and spent his early life in Duncan, Oklahoma where the dust-swept landscapes and oil fields laid the foundation for his aesthetic sensibilities.  It was his family's travels across the post-war European continent in the early 1950s, however, that left an indelible impression—the awesome cathedrals, magnificent sculptures, Old Master paintings, incomparable craftsmanship juxtaposed against the rubble of war.

Returning to the United States, Padgett earned his bachelor of science in business from Oklahoma State University. However, he had been profoundly captivated by the imaginative world of EC comics as a teenager. Exposure to the work of the talented illustrator Jack Davis kindled an ardent passion for the arts and illustration.

John's path was altered when he received a draft notice.  After he completed his college degree, he served as a Naval medical corpsman stationed in Oakland, California. Subsequently, he relocated to culturally dynamic 1960’s San Francisco and undertook the responsibility of delivering life-saving blood for The Irwin Memorial Blood Bank, while inspired to meticulously craft an art school admission portfolio. 

Upon completing his portfolio, Padgett was drawn to the wide thoroughfares of 1960s Los Angeles. He moved to Southern California and attended Art Center College of Design, graduating with honors in 1969, with a bachelor of fine arts degree in Illustration. He began his professional career working for distinguished advertising firms such as J. Walter Thompson, Needham, Harper & Steers, and Rick Drobner and Associates.

These were frustrating years for a man eager to express his own creative ideas, and Padgett decided to leave behind the limitations of corporate assignments. In 1989, after a burst of creative output while working alone in his home studio, he had the opportunity to exhibit some of his artworks at the Quinlan Gallery in Chicago, alongside drawings by renowned architect Walter Netsch. Titled “Habitations,” the show featured Padgett’s watercolor paintings from the mid-1970s, immortalizing the unique aesthetic of Hollywood Bungalows. Within these works lies a profound fusion of technical mastery and conceptual depth, capturing a vanishing architectural landscape and the essence of an obsolete dream, made resonant by the passage of time. This was Padgett’s only public exhibition.

In the early 1990s Padgett turned his unerring eye to the curbside where he found bottle caps, pencil stubs, candy wrappers and other tossed out and trampled objects, transforming them into a captivating series, "American Landscapes." Reminiscent of the works of Joseph Cornell, these creations poetically reflected the ever-changing fabric of the city, exploring themes of evolution and destruction with artistic finesse.

In the twilight of his artistic journey, Padgett became fascinated with street art.  Armed with rattle cans, he embarked on a series of work aptly titled "Krylon," named after the very paint brand he wielded with mastery. Embracing the freedom of this art-making, he engaged in a mesmerizing dance with the abstract, ingeniously repurposing discarded elements. He cherished, as always, what others tossed away.

In November of 2021, John Padgett died at age 82, leaving behind a creative legacy and a trove of masterpieces. His spirit lives on through the power of his artistic insight, ingenuity, and vision encompassing the inescapable metamorphosis of time.