Raymond Creekmore

Who was Raymond Creekmore?

Raymond Creekmore was a prolific artist, author and sailboat designer.

Creekmore was an American artist who, in the beginning of his career, "wandered" extensively, using his experiences in observation and his direct and expressive draftsmanship as vehicles to bring the sensitivity and ways of life in foreign lands to America's local shores.

Creekmore was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He moved to Baltimore, Maryland, graduating from the Maryland Institute School of Mechanical Arts in 1930. During his days as an art student, he became friends with another student artist, Leonard Bahr and they shared a studio for a while as well as a love of sailing, and remained lifelong friends. Creekmore was an easy-going student with a great sense of humor. After graduation in 1930, he worked his way through Europe with a sketch pad, and in 1933, spent five months in Mexico. By 1936, he set out again "on a shoestring" with his sketch pad as means of support. He stayed in villages in Japan, India, Mongolia, and China, and kept illustrated journals.

Between trips, he worked as a Baltimore Evening Sun staff illustrator, with sketches of his travels and of local news reports published regularly. One such local report told of his rides in a garbage truck on their late night run through the City streets—a bit of humor on what was normally encountered in that type of business. He also won prizes for his sketches of Baltimore neighborhoods in the Evening Sun sponsored b&w sketch contests. His drawings of the Orient comprised the first one-man show at the Baltimore Museum of Art that they had displayed in 6 years. In 1937, he published in Art Instruction, "A Baltimore Hiker in Nippon, Becoming Acquainted With The Japanese Alps," including sketches and photographs of his trip from the previous year. And in 1938, he participated in a Courbet Symposium and illustrated a booklet for the Peabody Conservatory of Music.