Ben Earl Looney

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Ben Earl Looney (June 2, 1904 - May 25, 1981) was a Louisiana artist and author know for his Water Colors of Dixie and Cajun Country, pen and ink sketches of Acadiana.

Looney was born in tiny Yellow Pine south of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish, to Julian A. Looney (1871-1958) and the former Mollie McKinney (1872-1932). The community was so named because the original buildings were all constructed in yellow pine timber. Julian and Mollie Looney shared a July 17 birthday but one year apart. He graduated from Minden High School, where he was known as "Earl", in 1923. His artistic talent was already apparent, as he was the art editor of the yearbook staff. One of his classmates was Leland G. Mims (1901-1979), a 1921 graduate who was later a small businessman in Minden and a veteran member and president of the Webster Parish Police Jury, the parish governing council.

Looney thereafter attended the Louisiana State University School of Journalism in Baton Rouge, Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport, the Corcoran Art School in Washington, D.C., and the Summer School of Arts in Eastport, Maine. He studied watercolor under George Ennis.

Looney launched his art career in his studio in Minden. In 1935, he moved to Baton Rouge to become the first head of the LSU art department. Over the years, he taught art in Sarasota, Florida, in a school-museum financed by the John Ringling circus family. There Looney taught Frank T. Norman, the future mayor of Minden, who became the first student to register at the new Ringling School of Art.^[1] Looney taught painting in New York City for nine years. He also taught art in Weston, Massachusetts; Bremerton, Washington; and Greensboro, North Carolina. He spent his last years in Lafayette, Louisiana, the showcase for his Cajun works.

Looney derived subject matter from forty-five of the fifty states plus Canada and Mexico. Ford Times, an in-house organ of the Ford Motor Company, published some forty-five of his paintings and articles. Another Looney painting is in the magazine of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Though Looney's published work was watercolor, most of his artistic talent was applied to oil or acrylic and is in private family collections. One of his popular oil paintings is Downtown Baton Rouge, 1920. Looney painted many plantation houses in Louisiana between 1940 and 1970 He painted large oil murals for various dignitaries and clients, including the Ford Motor Company.

Other works included the following: Beau Sejour, watercolors of Louisiana plantation houses; Drawings of the Vieux Carre, about New Orleans and the French Quarter, with captions in English and French; Cajun Vignettes, short stories and poems; Looney Plants Grow Wild, paintings and satirical horticultural definitions.

Looney was preceded in death by his parents; a brother, Julian L. Looney (1894-1958), and a brother-in-law, Robert D. Moseley (1894-1972). His father and brother died the same year. Survivors included two sisters, Eula Looney Moseley (1896-1986), the widow of Robert Moseley, and Lucille Looney Miller (1898-1994), wife of Ray Winn Miller, Sr. (1899-1981). Looney died two months before brother-in-law Ray Miller expired. All the Looneys are buried in the Minden Cemetery in Minden except for Ben Looney, who donated his remains to the LSU School of Medicine. Looney never married.