Albert Ernest “Bean” Backus was the perfect regionalist. He was unsurpassed in painting the natural environs around his hometown of Fort Pierce. He painted subtropical Florida impressionistically, depicting scenes of the land he knew and loved with flair. Backus is considered The Dean of Florida Landscape Painting. He taught Alfred Hair and inspired the Highwaymen.

Backus welcomed everyone to his home-studio and it seemed everyone came and went regularly, and not only to paint and purchase paintings, but to relax and socialize. The welcoming place might have had the look and feel of a speakeasy at times, but the only law being broken was Jim Crow. Children could come of age there, while adults enjoyed the merriment. “He helped a lot of young people, a lot of young men and women go to college over the years,” recalls Don Brown, his studio manager, adding, “Rich or poor, black or white, it didn’t make a difference to him.”

As Brown understands it, Backus’s success was largely a result of the tonal gradation of his colors. He explains that many artists with academic training “learned values,” that tones come in ten sets of ten, from black to white. But Backus knew nothing about this. “He went on location and matched colors,” Brown offers, adding, “Bean came up slowly with his own values and enhanced their brilliance. That’s why his paintings sing to you.”