Carl Lotave

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe Carl Lotave (February 29, 1872 – December 27, 1924) was a painter of portraits, illustrator, and sculptor. He painted portraits of notable leaders of World War I and is best known for his two portraits of President Abraham Lincoln. He then studied at Paris at the Académie Colarossi. and then he went to the United States in 1897 to teach at Bethany College, at the recommendation of Birger Sandzén. He held the position from 1897 to 1899, when his friend Birger Sandzén took over the position. While in Kansas, he painted an altarpiece called Transfiguration at the Swedish Lutheran Church in Salemsborg, Kansas, about 1898.

Sandzén, G.N. Malm, and Lotave organized the first exhibition of Swedish-American art. It became the annual Midwest Art Exhibition.

Lotave moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1899 He worked from 1897 to 1910 on commissions to paint Native Americans for the Smithsonian Institution.

He was among the faculty of the Colorado Art School by 1904 and he lived in Denver by 1909. He had started to make a name for himself as a portrait painter by that time. He painted portraits of society women in 1911 in New York City, followed by commissions for portraits on the Pacific Coast.

He was a friend of New Mexican Governor Miguel A. Otero and painted murals for the New Mexico Palace of the Governors. The murals were added as part of a renovation from 1909 to 1913. He painted a portrait of Governor Charles Bent, which was hung in the New Mexico state senate.

After living in Santa Fe, Over his career, he painted portraits of King Albert, Premier Eleftherios Venizelos, General John J. Pershing, and General Paul von Hindenburg. and provided illustrations for magazines, including Success and Mountain Sunshine. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, she was the niece of dean of the Glasgow Cathedral and the chaplain in ordinary to King George V, Rev. Dr. Pearson McAdam Muir. Due to a difference in temperaments, they divorced in 1909. Janette married family friend John W. Springer in June 1915 after a two-year courtship. His ashes were buried at the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado