When photography became popular for advertisements in the 1950's many illustrators were robbed of the work they had enjoyed for decades. These were tough times for American commercial artists. Keith turned to portraiture, and being naturally adept he made a good living. He was also very charming and witty - in that true Jimmy Stewart oldschool American way - it's rare to meet people of that caliber any more, we've become homogenized and diluted by TV, fast food and cheap goods. But Keith grew up on the dirt highways of the American West, his father was a half-Iroquois itinerant photographer who documented Indians and settler-life but made bread & butter from photographing weddings and events and the newly successful across the plains. The family would take a train to a town and rent a horse and wagon for a fortnight as they shuttled from homestead to homestead fulfilling photographic commissions. He told me one story where his father had forgotten to remove the plate from the camera after photographing a rancher's herd of cattle, then, going on to photograph the rancher's family. The resulting print showed cattle and family all huddled together with livestock peering over the shoulders of the people, however the rancher loved it and ordered a dozen prints. Keith and his brother barely saw the inside of a classroom but watched America go from dirt roads to space travel over the course of his life. He was in awe over this. Later in life as his eyesight began to fail his painting became increasingly impressionistic and finally almost abstract. When I asked how he felt about this he replied "Good, I rely less on the sight of my eyes and more on the vision of my heart".
