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- Obituary - Richmond Times Dispatch, 21 Nov 2010
Artist Luther Coleman Wells was cruising in his MG at dusk on a fall day when he posed a question to his granddaughter: "Look across that field at the trees in the distance. Tell me what color they are."
"I thought, OK, they're green. I looked. 'They're purple!'" recalled Ashley Rowland Goodwin of Henrico County
"He said, 'You learn by looking.' And that's what he did. He looked and looked and looked and looked."
The life of Mr. Wells, who began drawing before he could talk and spent a lifetime recording through art his appreciation of what other people had done, was celebrated at a memorial service Saturday at Reveille United Methodist Church in Richmond. Interment was in the church memorial garden.
He died in his sleep last Sunday at his Henrico residence, a day after celebrating his 98th birthday.
By the time the Richmond native graduated from high school at 14, he had filled notebooks with illustrations of his history notes and been enrolled by pre-eminent artist Theresa Pollak in her classes at the College of William and Mary Extension.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a history major from the University of Richmond at 18.
From 1932 to 1934, he studied on scholarship at the Art Students League under some of the best talent in New York He was a fellow at Louis Comfort Tiffany's studios and estate on New York's Long Island, where he regularly sat among the glitterati at Tiffany's dinner table, Goodwin said.
During the 1930s, he worked as an advertising artist for the New York Sun at night and freelanced for publications including The New Yorker and Mademoiselle by day.
Married in 1935 to Richmonder Grace Rowland , he returned to Richmond in 1941 as an advertising designer and artist and served as art director for Miller & Rhoads department stores.
One day in 1943, he consumed 2 gallons of milk and a large quantity of bananas so he would weigh enough to be accepted into the Navy . He served in the Pacific on LST-712, recording action from Guadalcanal to the docks of Tokyo through his art.
After the war, he served as art director and advertising manager at Thalhimers department stores and as art director at the advertising firm of Cargill & Wilson Inc. He retired in 1982 as art director of Southern States Cooperative Inc., where he developed the "SS" logo.
He promoted Virginia culture and history through his commercial art and other projects.
After retiring, he returned to mural work, painting a three-panel history of activity on the James River at Berkeley Plantation and, when he was 80, a mural capturing the view of the city during the Civil War for the rooftop garden at the Bolling Haxall House.
His passion was searching by car and plane for lost state cultural and historic treasures, recording them and promoting their preservation.
An avid Coast Guard flotillaman who had taught seamanship classes through vivid chalkboard art, he explored the state's inland waterways for 40 years "so he could see Virginia the way it was first seen by the first settlers on the water," Goodwin said. "He lived visually."
His wife died in 1998.
After his daughter, Linda, died in 1973, he and his wife adopted her children, Ashley Goodwin and Day M.W. Goodwin of Richmond. Survivors also include three more grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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