Portraits of Lippitt Morman, by Williamson and Chase

The estate of Monrovia/Duarte horseman Merle Little included hundreds of photographs of his Pinto and Morgan horses, burros, hinnies, and other animals that lived at El Rancho Poco over the decades. The pictures help illustrate, and connect us more intimately to, the much larger world that was the Southern California horse community in the twentieth century.

The Little estate collection includes many pictures of the one horse that Little's daughters told me held a special place in Merle's heart: the chestnut Morgan stallion Lippitt Morman. Merle saved this print in a frame with a cutout from a flyer he had printed about his stallions. 

Merle used a cropped version of the same head study of Lippitt Morman in some of his ads in Western Livestock Journal in the mid-1950s.

I think the negative may have been "flopped" to show the horse looking to the right, since we know from other images that Lippitt Morman seems to have worn his mane on the right side of his neck. Another copy of the picture shows the horse looking left.

Whichever side the mane was on, the image of Lippitt Morman was taken by John H. Williamson (1916-2009), whose work I often encounter in my equine history research.  

Many of Williamson's horse show photographs have the logo "WmSon" on the front; several in the Little estate collection have his name and address rubber-stamped on the back. This photo, of the whole Little family on horseback, has both the logo on the lower left front and the name and address stamp on the reverse, so we know that "WmSon" was indeed John H. Williamson's mark. 

Left to right: Merle Little on Senor Morgan, Marlene Little on Anita Belle Gift,
Donnette Little on Santa Ynez, and Edna May Little on Lippitt Morman. 

This picture dates to late 1948; the family was getting ready to participate in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day 1949. 

Many of the history research trails I follow lead me back to cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg's Arabian Horse Ranch in Pomona, one of Southern California's major hubs of equine activity during the twentieth century. This story is no different: photographer John H. Williamson was one of Kellogg's grandchildren. Williamson graduated from Pomona High School while living at the Kellogg Ranch, attended UC Davis, and worked as a draftsman for Lockheed Aircraft during World War II. 

Williamson's skill as a photographer landed him a job taking still photos and Technicolor films during ranch manager Preston Dyer's 1947 expedition to the Middle East to bring back Arabians for newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. Williamson traveled with Dyer and veterinarian Fred Pulling.  Mark Potts wrote about the journey in an Arabian Horse World article, archived here:  

https://issuu.com/arabianhorseworld/docs/0416_the_1947_hearst_expedition_sq

We can see Williamson's horse photographs in post-war issues of the Western Livestock Journal, in the Here's Who in Horses of the Pacific Coast book series, and in newspapers. Williamson also served as a judge at an Arabian horse show at the Los Angeles County Spring Fair in June 1947, where artist and author Gladys Brown Edwards (also closely associated with the Kellogg Ranch) served as ring steward. 

At some point, an artist who signed their work only "Chase" used Williamson's head study photograph as inspiration for a large portrait in oils of Lippitt Morman. It is faithful to the photograph, down to the silver-mounted Western bridle.

Portrait of Lippitt Morman, by Chase. Approximately 18x24".
Date unknown.

Based on many local newspaper articles from that era, I believe the artist was Barbara "Chase" Beekman (1923-2002) of Duarte. She was well-known locally for her portraits of horses (including Thoroughbreds Man O' War and Silky Sullivan) and other animals. She gave "Lippitt" (as the Little family called him) a twinkle in his eye, underscoring his sparkling personality.

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Many thanks to Kimberley Erickson, Library Services Specialist at the W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona; to Tobi Lopez Taylor; and to Dolores "Dee" Adkins, for their research that helped inform this article.

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Here's my earlier blog post about Lippitt Morman, which tells more of his story including the ceramic portrait model designed by Maureen Love for the California pottery Hagen-Renaker, Inc.. The post also contains a link to Dawn Sinkovich's blog post that shows many examples of Maureen Love's drawings of "Lippitt":  

http://modelhorsehistory.blogspot.com/2018/05/happy-birthday-lippitt-morman.html