Biography

Quinten Gregory (1929-1998) was born in Topeka Kansas on April 11, 1929. His family moved to Boise, Idaho in the 1930's where Gregory went through school. A primarily self-taught artist, Quinten sold his first paintings while still in high school. A man of many talents, Gregory had a pilot's license and was something of an expert fly fisherman during his early years.

He married shortly after high school and, with his wife Helen and the first two of the couple's eventual five children, moved to Ontario, Oregon where Quinten started his own sign painting business. He continued to sell paintings and do commissions wherever possible and, following a move back to Boise in the late '50's, phased sign painting into advertising and package design for major companies. He was painting and selling pictures all the while and soon was devoting all of his time exclusively to fine art.

Gregory's "non-art" interests, in addition to family activities, included fishing and hunting, photography, pistol shooting, judo, and motorcycling. Determined to master everything he attempted, Quinten Gregory became a 3rd Degree blackbelt in judo and started a club which exists today in Boise. Taking his dirt bike expertise to a competitive level, he became Idaho State Motorcycle Trials Champion in the 1970's.

But art was always Quinten Gregory's passion and he began painting more and "recreating" less during the 70's. More and more of his spectacular landscape works were beginning to show up on the walls of the northwest's most prominent citizens. As his fame grew, he became more in demand for classes and workshops and always shared his knowledge with aspiring artists. His sense of community was not forgotten either and he created everything from astounding backdrops for local stage productions to paintings for the hospital auxiliary's annual Christmas card project to an enormous stained glass window for Helen's church.

Gregory designed and built his custom home and studio in 1972 and began working on his unique original lithograph process toward the end of that decade. Between the original lithographs and issuing a series of limited edition reproduction prints, Quinten became interested in video and was soon combining his teaching expertise with this emerging technology. The 1986 result was Professional Realism 1 - the first of a total of 16 video titles he created. He controlled all aspects of video production, from writing the scripts, the photography, the editing, and even package design. Always learning, Gregory taught himself computers and was soon pushing the envelope doing his own digital video editing.

Quinten Gregory passed away suddenly in January of 1998, the result of a massive and unexpected heart attack. He leaves an incredible body of work and the ongoing legacy of his series of video tapes to help instruct future generations of artists. At the time of his death, Gregory was working on a commissioned painting and was just a few brush strokes and a signature from completion. "The Unfinished Painting" can be seen on the home page of this website and is also available as a notecard on the Products page.