Eric Sloane at Benjamin Art Gallery

Eric Sloane was born, Everard Jean Hinrichs on February 27, 1905 in New York City, New York, to a well-to-do family. Early on, he took up an interest in art, spending many boyhood hours with neighbor and noted font inventor, Gaudy (Gaudy Type). From Gaudy, at an early age, he learned to hand paint letters and signs.

Some of his first clients included aviation pioneers flying out of Roosevelt Field, Long Island. Many of those flyers insisted he paint the identifying marking on their planes. In exchange for teaching him to paint, Wiley Post himself, taught the young Hinrichs to fly. After his first flight the young man fell in love with clouds and the sky, themes that would be central to his work for the rest of his life. Among his early clients was Amelia Erhardt, who bought his first cloud painting. Said to be the finest cloud painter of his generation, his largest cloud painting graces an entire wall of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

A prolific member of the Hudson River School of painting, it is generally accepted that Eric Sloane was a artistic genius. Over his lifetime Sloane wrote thirty eight books. It is estimated that he created nearly 15,000 paintings over his lifetime, mostly oil on masonite. He painted one almost every day, often before lunch, striving to do better than the day before. Later in his life, he bought back or traded for some of his earlier work, which he destroyed by fire, contending it was inferior.

Fascinated by weather, The Farmer's Almanac and the early American farmer's ability interpret "weather signs," Sloane is credited with being the first television weatherman, having come up with the idea of having farmers from all over New England call in their weather observations to a Dumont, New York TV station where they could be broadcast to the regional audience. He penned several useful books on the subject.

Shortly before the release of his last book, "Eighty," on his way to meet his wife for lunch, Eric died instantly of a heart attack in New York, on March 5th, 1985, on the steps of the Plaza Hotel. Friends say it was the only time he was ever late. He is buried in Kent, Connecticut at the Sloane Stanley Museum.

Sloane was married a total of five times. Little is known by this biographer of his first four wives. His last and longest life partner, Miriam Francis Alicia Carman, "Mimi", born Brussels May 8, 1925, lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Eric's spirit lives on today as if he's determined to keep the invincible Early American Spirit alive. One has only to read one of his books or view his paintings to be touched by his unfathomable human compassion.

Marshall Smith, November 1, 1999 - Los Angeles, California

Buy Available Eric Sloane collectibles today!

Sky Cathedral (Prints)