Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery is pleased to feature the works of Joshua Meador 1911-1965, an extraordinary California landscape impressionist.

From 1960 to 1965, Joshua Meador and his wife Libby lived in Caspar, California, in a beautiful home perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. He is well known for creating captivating palette knife paintings of the Northern California coast, its nearby ranch lands and quaint small towns.

Joshua Meador's years living in Caspar were the pinnacle of his artistic career. Most paintings in this article are from our Joshua Meador Collection, others are from the Meador Family Collection, and one in the collection of the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Some of these paintings are available for sale and are linked to the corresponding page on our website.

In 1960, Joshua Meador was 49 years old. His accomplishments in animation effects at Disney Studios were stellar. Over his 23 years at the Disney Studios as Director of Animation Effects, he made major contributions to most of the Disney's film classics.

Beyond Walt Disney's feature films, Josh also participated in the production of Disney's television series The Wide World of Color and Disney's launch of Disneyland in 1955 in which Josh had responsibilities in the creation of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the Kon-Tiki Room. Long-time Joshua Meador friend the late Joe Cosgrove recalled a time he visited Josh in one of his work bays at Disney Studios and nearly tripped over Abraham Lincoln's animatronic head which Josh was working on at the time.

Joshua Meador was part of the special effects team which won an Oscar for 1954's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This award catapulted Joshua Meador's reputation within the film industry. Walt Disney was proud to boast of his artist's accomplishments and soon loaned out his animation effects star to MGM for the production of their sci-fi hit, Forbidden Planet. Also in 1956, Walt Disney was approached by Cecil B. DeMille, who expressed to Walt his difficulty in creating the "Pillar of Fire" scene for The Ten Commandments. Walt asked Joshua Meador to lend his services again.

As his animation career reached new heights, Joshua Meador openly expressed to Walt his desire to pursue his career as a fine art painter. While people admiringly gathered behind his easel as he painted, Josh often explained, "First and foremost, I'm an impressionist. Disney is just my day job."

In 1957, Walt Disney produced a short film shown on his television program entitled 4 Artists Paint 1 Tree. In the film, four artists including Joshua Meador and his colleagues Eyvind Earl, Walt Paragoy and Marc Davis each painted the same live oak tree, each explaining their technique as they painted. Today, this film is most valuable because it allows us to listen and observe as Joshua Meador explains and demonstrates his palette knife technique.

In 1960, Josh celebrated his 49th birthday. Walt Disney knew of Joshua Meador's wishes to spend more time painting, but he also did not want to lose his animation effects super star. Walt called Josh to his office and made Josh a sweet offer. Josh could move to northern California and pursue his painting career full time, but on occasion, when Walt had need of his unique set of experience and skills, Josh would return to Hollywood to work on special projects. For this agreement, Josh maintained his title as Disney Studio's "Director of Animation Effects" and would continue to receive his full salary. At the time, an arrangement such as this was unprecedented.

With this arrangement in place, Josh and his wife Libby built their dream home on the incredibly scenic rocky cliffs above the Pacific Ocean in Caspar, California, just north of Mendocino.

From his base in Caspar, Josh painted scenes of the Pacific and the scenic towns and farmlands close by. His wife Libby ran a small gallery, selling paintings to tourists. For recreation, Josh invested in a salmon boat which he kept at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg. His son Philip explained to me that the boat was paid for from the profits from the salmon. Two of our gallery's Meador paintings were done in picturesque Noyo Harbor, Waiting at Noyo and Homeport.

Hollywood called quite a few times after 1960. Josh returned to Disney Studios to work on a number of projects, including Babes in Toyland, Fred MacMurray's "Flubber" movies, and Mary Poppins where Josh mixed live action with animation as Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews danced with penguins. Fred MacMurray became one of Joshua Meador's friends. MacMurray had a northern California ranch in Sonoma County and owned a collection of Joshua Meador paintings.

Regarding Mary Poppins, we learned another bit of Joshua Meador's history from Joshua Meador's friend Joe Cosgrove, who at the time was a DJ at Los Angeles radio station KPOL.

In the summer of 2013, Linda Sorensen and I met Joe Cosgrove and his wife Janet at Disneyland where we talked extensively about Joshua Meador's Disney career. While circling the park aboard Walt's private railroad car "the Lilly Belle," Joe Cosgrove explained to us, "The animation was already in the can. Josh was called in to be present during the live action filming for the "dancing penguins" scene. Josh was there to make certain Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews hit their marks exactly in order to mesh with the finished animation. Josh took the live footage of the shoot and mixed it with the animation on his moviola, frame by frame, penguin by penguin." Joe Cosgrove died in 2022 at the age of 91.

After the horrific days of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in November of 1963, President Lyndon Johnson continued JFK's goal of placing a man on the moon before 1970. In 1964, detailed plans where being made, even down to the details of choosing an artist to document this historic achievement. Josh was chosen to paint an on-the-scene portrait of returning astronauts from the moon as they arrived aboard an aircraft carrier. To the best of our knowledge, the details of how Joshua Meador was chosen for this honor is lost to history, but the fact remains he was chosen. Joshua Meador's son Philip told me that Josh was giddy with anticipation and followed the achievements of NASA closely.

Back in Caspar, Josh's career was going great. He was represented by art galleries in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles and had one-man shows up and down the West Coast. He received favorable reviews from the likes of Arthur Millier, Art Critic for the Los Angeles Times, and Alfred Frankenstein, Art Critic for thee San Francisco Chronicle.

But then, in August of 1965, tragedy struck. Josh, while taking a lunch break at his patio table overlooking the Pacific, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was only 54.

Joshua Meador's death at such a young age leads us to wonder what his career would have looked like had he lived to a ripe old age. Oh how we wish he had 30 more years of his work. Josh often referred to himself as an impressionist, but he went on to say that "impressionism can be informed by modern art." We can't help but wonder what new directions his painting might have taken.

Throughout his life, Joshua Meador was always an artist. Art was his profession, his hobby, and it's what he did when on family vacations. He lived art, breathed art and was ever engaged in the process, gaining inspiration, sketching or was spreading paint on a canvas. He even painted of picture of himself in action entitled, I Dreamt I was Painting. This painting was the centerpiece of a gallery exhibition Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery presented in 2015.

Below is more evidence that Joshua Meador's was a landscape painter all of his life. On an interior wall of his boyhood home's garage in Columbus, Mississippi, now over a century old, there is a whitewash mountain landscape. We don't believe Josh had ever seen a mountain when he painted it. Wherever the inspiration for this creation, it was indeed a precursor of the art which would soon flow freely from Joshua Meador.

Besides painting the walls of his garage, Josh's formative years in Columbus, Mississippi, were filled with all manner of accomplishments. At S. D. Lee High School in Columbus, Josh was an outstanding student in math and science and was a star athlete. As an 18 year old in 1929, Josh earned an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The prospect of a Naval career would have received high praise in Columbus, Mississippi, and a huge point of pride for his family.

But after receiving the appointment, Josh had a change of heart. Even though Josh lived in the deep South and knew full well the social significance of his appointment, he had the courage to tell his father he wanted to forgo Annapolis, and wanted to study art instead.

To his father's great credit, Josh and his father traveled by train to New York to look at the Art Students League and then on to Chicago to consider the Art Institute of Chicago. Josh chose to attend the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1930, Josh and his high school sweetheart and new bride Libby settled into a small Chicago apartment. In October of their first year in Chicago, Black Friday occurred on Wall Street marking the beginning of the Great Depression. Four years later in 1934, Josh graduated. Like most other parts of the economy, art-related jobs were nonexistent. After a few low paying odd jobs and painting murals, Josh, on the dare of a classmate, submitted his portfolio to that not yet famous young animator out in California. After sending his portfolio, Josh and Libby took a huge leap of faith to move to California and knock on the door Walt Disney Studios.

They traveled to Detroit and arranged to be drivers for transporting a brand new car to California, because in 1935, people wanting to go west on the cheap would volunteer to drive a new car west, free of charge. It sounds crazy today, but back then, that's how new 1930's vehicles made their way west.

When Joshua Meador arrived at Disney Studios, he was 24 years old. At that time, Walt Disney was 35 and he hired Josh on the spot! By 1937, Joshua Meador was hard at work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and soon would in a couple of years be one of the directors of 1939's Fantasia.

If you wish to sell us a Joshua Meador painting, we are interested in hearing from you.

Linda Sorensen and I not only buy and sell paintings by Joshua Meador. We have long been and continue to be among his fans. We do what we can to elevate awareness of this extraordinary artist and point to his legacy, both in animation and fine art. We continue to collect his work and buy his paintings. If you have Meador painting we've not yet seen, we'd love to see yours. Although we cannot buy all Meador paintings offered to us, we do buy Meador paintings which we feel are good candidates for our collection and are appealing candidates for sale. Please text or email full file jpg photos of paintings you may wish to sell and we will respond.

If you wish to acquire a Joshua Meador painting, then we are really interested.

Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's website has a special section dedicated to our The Joshua Meador Collection. All paintings available for sale can be found there. Beyond the paintings our gallery owns, we also can assist clients interested in Meador paintings currently held by the Meador Family in Southern California. Upon request, we will make inquiries and help arrange for the sale of paintings from the family collection.

Please call, text or email your inquiries 707-875-2911 / Art@BodegaBayHeritageGallery.com

We strongly advise that clients view these paintings in person prior to buying, if possible. The impact of these paintings in person far exceeds any photographs we could provide. Only in person can one appreciate Joshua Meador's true colors and the impasto of his palette knife technique. Buying art is an intimate experience between the buyer and the painting which "speaks" to them. We will do everything practically possible to make your buying experience pleasurable, and should magic happen, we are pleased to arrange your purchase.

We are pleased to debut three new Joshua Meador paintings recently added to our gallery collection. All have been reframed and are available for sale. Click on the photos for a closer look.
Call, text, or email your inquiries ... 707-875-2911 / Art@BodegaBayHeritageGallery.com

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Saturday and Sunday, Sept 30 - Oct 1  &  Oct 7 - 8, 10-5

Linda Storensen's OPEN STUDIO, #5, Atelier One,
2060 Bowen Street, Graton, CA 95444
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Museum of American Art

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Have us bring selected works to your home ... Call or email for a an appointment. (up to 200 miles from Bodega Bay).

Or, purchase from our website. We offer FedEx shipping (usually included in price) in the U.S. for major purchases. 707-875-2911.