John Register

Who was John Register?

John Register was born 1939 in New York City, New York and died in 1996 in Malibu, California. Register was American realist painter. Register graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with B.A. in Literature, in 1961. He met his wife Catherine Richards in a photography class at The Pasadena Art Center where he was studying commercial art. John Register and Catherine Richards were married on February 6, 1964. Living in New York, they had three children Peter, Kate and David by 1969, as John Register pursued a career in advertising at McCaffrey and McCall. In 1972 John Register famously stood up from a big client meeting and announced he had "a dentist appointment " never to return to advertising. It was from that moment on that he dedicated himself to painting as a full-time career and passion. The family drove across the country in a 1966 Volvo with two cats and a Doberman, camping along the way. John Register photographed the cities they passed through. John Register said, "I look for offbeat beauty. I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it. There are things so ugly that I can't paint them.