06/19/2023
Now the park is named after her, too!
By Tim Traeger
Editor
John William Orth was a prolific painter. Over the course of his life he created thousands of works of art.
Now some of his masterpieces are on display at the Whittier Museum in the form of 20- by 24-inch paintings of the first 35 American presidents – from George Washington to Richard Nixon. Similar to the miniature oil paintings we have displayed in our Wardman Hall, the larger paintings represent the third set of presidential portraits create by Orth, the father of Museum key patron Erika Owens. She is the wife of late Whittier Daily News Publisher Lee Owens, a founding member in creating the Whittier Museum and the Boys & Girls Club of Whittier.
“He started painting as a small boy,” Erika Owens said about her father from the kitchen of her longtime Friendly Hills home. “He was talented in art and painting and his family sent him to the famous art school in Munich, Germany.”
Ironically, Erika said her father had no special love for the presidency, nor any particular commander in chief.
Erika said her husband was instrumental to getting the paintings donated to the Wardman Library at Whittier College on Oct. 19, 1977. The Museum acquired them in February with the help of former Wardman Library Interim Director Mike Garabedian.
“The Museum is the perfect place to display them,” Garabedian said. “They belong there.”
Erika said her husband was well-versed in all types of painting, including a true-life drawing of Erika’s mother’s dog, Nellie.
“He was in the middle of painting lots of things. Flower bouquets and reproductions of all kinds of things that people wanted,” Erika said. “Coming to the U.S., he thought ‘well, the presidents were kind of important.’ And there weren’t any big collections of the presidents around at the time. So it was open season on going out and doing research.”
After moving to California from Houston, Erika said her father painted many bouquets of flowers.
“Being an artist was a full-time job. Just to make a living you had to keep putting out and putting out all the time,” Erika said. “An artist’s life was very difficult. He did a lot of painting just to get by, just to earn a living. One of the things he was most famous for was painting bouquets of flowers. Flowers and vases. People would buy those to decorate their houses. He painted hundreds of those in Southern California, and they all sold. He could paint anything.”
“He could do oil or watercolor or etchings. He did a lot of etchings,” Erika said.
Grandson, Tim Owens, spoke about his grandfather’s penchant for art.
“He was prolific. When I was a kid we’d go to his house in Santa Ana, a three-bedroom ranch. And one or two rooms were empty, except rows of pictures stacked against the walls,” Tim Owens said.
Erika and Lee Owens were married in 1952 and the union lasted close to 50 years.
“It was a wonderful marriage,” Erika said. “Lee was a great man. He worked hard for Whittier. He’s the one that got the Museum. He got that building. Then he worked so hard building the boys and girls club.”
Upon his death in 2001, a park on Greenleaf Avenue was named after Owens.
