This website is the product of my primary COVID project out in California.  Donald Teague is my biologic grandfather (I was adopted out at birth; Don’s daughter Linda was my birth mother), and I ‘took advantage of lockdown,’ so to speak, to take the deepest of dives into Donald’s career as an illustrator and fine artist.  I hope that you enjoy the material I’m sharing on this website as much as I do.

Prior to commencing this project, what I knew about Teague was limited to works in the family, material presented in the Teague book A Life In Color (Claudia Meyer; Nygard Publishing), and anecdotes shared by Linda and other family members.  When Linda passed in late 2017, I inherited various materials from her, including Don’s archives.  Early into the COVID lockdown, I figured what better time to start processing these archival materials – other than going for hikes, there wasn’t much else to do!  With assistance from Ken Kitch (husband of Hilary, Don’s other daughter), I organized and began scanning Don’s archival materials.  It soon became apparent to me how little I actually knew about the details of his career.  For starters, he had done hundreds of excellent illustrations and fine art paintings that I had never seen.  It also soon became apparent to me that enough unpublished and/or effectively forgotten material existed to justify doing this website.

No comprehensive list exists of every Teague story illustration – the same is true for all illustrators.  One must search for them, using online listings and search engines to the extent that they can help, and brute force method (i.e. turning pages) in most cases.  Over the past two plus years I’ve spent plenty of quality time with old magazines at the UC Berkeley and UC Davis libraries, the San Francisco Public Library, and the Los Angeles Public Library.  I wish to thank them for preserving these seldom-touched publications from the past.  Digitization of these materials is good, but is no substitute for physical paper in the context of a project like this.  Teague is remembered mostly for his westerns, and I am biased toward them.  As a mature artist, had few rivals when it came to rendering the horse.  In light of these considerations, westerns and works containing horses will be over-represented a bit on this website.  Those who are curious can follow his progression during the course of his career.     

I’ll be plugging away on this website for quite some time.  One must start somewhere, and I plan to start with Don’s early career and career as an illustrator, include his western and Monterey Peninsula fine art paintings early on, then tackle the remaining fine art.  If you are antsy to see his overseas fine art material, hang in there and check the Updates page from time to time. 

— Scott