R. Kenton Nelson

Kenton Nelson
Born	1954 Pasadena, California
Residence	Padadena, California
Education	California State University, Long Beach Otis College of Art and Design
Occupation	Painter, muralist, illustrator, art teacher
Relatives	Roberto Montenegro (great-uncle)

R. Kenton Nelson (born 1954) is an American painter and muralist from California.

R. Kenton Nelson, now known as Kenton Nelson, was born in 1954 in Pasadena, California. His great-uncle, whom he was named after, was Roberto Montenegro, a Mexican muralist who was friends with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (who married in his garden). His father worked at General Motors and his mother was a housewife. He graduated from the California State University, Long Beach in Long Beach, California and attended the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California.

He spent the first eighteen years of his career as an illustrator and graphic designer. He also taught at his alma mater, the Otis Parsons Art Institute, as well as at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, California.

Since the 1990s, he has painted his work in a studio in Pasadena, California. His early influences include the photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, American advertisements from the 1950s, Fred Astaire and Alfred Hitchcock, as well as the writings of John Cheever, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver. He also credits David Alfaro Siqueiros, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and José Clemente Orozco, as well as Edward Hopper. Like Hopper and Grant Wood, he paints "narrative realism," set in Southern California

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