Early Equine Art by Maureen Love, 1939

Maureen Love in high school, via Ancestry.com,
accessed July 18, 2025.

California artist Maureen May Love (1922-2004) is renowned as a sculptor of horse and other animal figurines. She is most often associated with the Southern California pottery Hagen-Renaker, Inc., for which she designed hundreds of three-dimensional creatures over a career of several decades. 

Earlier in her life, Maureen gained a reputation for her two-dimensional drawings and sketches. Dawn Sinkovich's excellent blog Share the Love recalls:

She drew as a very young child, took art classes and was the art editor in high school, won local and California state art contests, and then went on to win national competitions sponsored by Higgins and Strathmore. 

Several San Diego County newspapers reported on Maureen's success. Her winning art was reproduced in the San Diego Sun newspaper on May 14, 1939.

There is a slightly better copy of it available online. The May 6, 1939 edition of Scholastic Magazine published an detailed article about its 12th Annual High School Art Exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Nearly 800 pieces were selected from among 10,000 original entries from students around the country. 

The magazine's reproduction of Maureen's work had the caption:

Higgins Memorial Awards First Prize

Black Inks, $25 and the Strathmore Aware, $15 

-- Maureen Love, 16, Sweetwater H.S. (High School), National City, Calif

Maureen's work shows a man just about to be thrown from a rearing horse. Three other men behind a hitching post watch from a short distance as a fourth man races to get out of the horse's way. I am, of course, mostly interested in the focal point of the art: the horse. 

Higgins Ink used Maureen's work in some of their 1940 print ads in Scholastic:

Maureen's choice of a Western scene reflected her admiration for the genre. In her book Horse, Bird, and Wildlife Figures of Maureen Love: Hagen-Renaker and Beyond, author Nancy Kelly interviewed Maureen about her early years: 

...I also had art books and stuff that my mom would get me. I was always pretty interested in Western type stuff, so she got me a good on [Frederick] Remington and [Charles] Russell, and some other books. So those kind of influenced me, I'm sure.

We see several examples of Maureen's early Western art published in the 1939 edition of Red and Gray, Sweetwater Union High School's annual yearbook. 

Drat the layout style: it cuts most of the horses into segments across two pages! The only intact horse Maureen drew, headed the "Athletics" section.

We know that in later years, Maureen sketched horses and other animals from life, visiting Southern California equestrian venues like Santa Anita racetrack, horse shows, and horse ranches. I wonder if she attended San Diego-area rodeos to inspire her work for the Red and Gray? 

Maureen could not have known that her passion for equine art would lead to a career so much associated with horses and other animals. It's fascinating to see her early work in this context.

Notes:

Share the Love:  

https://sharethemaureenlove.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-beginning-of-share-love-day-with.html

Nancy Kelly's books on Maureen Love and Hagen-Renaker: 

https://ketain.com/books/